


A House is Not A Home (Unless You Make it One)

by BlueSkyeEyes



Series: Batteries Not Included [1]
Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Fraternity, Alternate Universe - No Powers, But it's from Shaw so we expect that, Coming of Age, Erik and Charles are teachers, F/M, Hank is a jerk, M/M, Pinings, Prank Wars, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Unrequited Love, bastardization of the school system, dumb boys, heavy kissing, one homophobic comment, rival fraternities, this is a really silly story guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 04:25:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12028062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueSkyeEyes/pseuds/BlueSkyeEyes
Summary: Hank was so focused on being quiet that he didn’t realize anything was wrong until he’d already bit into the stiff, waxy apple. “Shit!” He exclaimed, a rare expletive falling from his lips along with the mouthful of fake fruit. He dropped the apple into the sink with a gag. The heavy plastic taste in his mouth was enough to make him feel a little ill, but he choked that down as he stared at the fruit bowl in horror.There was no denying it now. This was officially a prank war.





	A House is Not A Home (Unless You Make it One)

**Author's Note:**

> This story was born from my attempt to write a funny one-shot about frat brothers Alex and Hank realizing they liked each other, and 36,000 words later has turned into a total beast with a mind of it's own. Yes, I took a lot of liberties about Greek Letter Societies, but some of it was necessary for plot purposes. Anyways, a huge shoutout to everyone who helped make this story possible. I couldn't have done it without your support, and love (and ability to stay up till all hours of the morning to talk me through a scene or help me re-write the same paragraph ten different times)!

**SEPTEMBER.**

The rush of Saturday evening hung in the air—or had the day ticked over to Sunday morning already?—as the party raged on around Hank. He was on his fourth drink, and feeling just a bit too tipsy to consider joining in on the cheer of _kegstand, kegstand, kegstand_ circulating its way through the crowd. With his luck, he would end up hoisted on top of the keg, and that was the last thing he wanted right now.

Bobby and Alex writhed together near him, looking for all their effort like two dying eels. He thought they might have been trying to _whip_ or _nae nae_ , but he was hardly the expert on these things. They looked wholeheartedly enthusiastic about it, though, and Hank couldn’t bring himself to stop their fun.

The feeling was obviously not shared by the two juniors, however, because the moment Hank headed for the kitchen (away from the racket and towards the food), four arms were dragging him back into the fray, octopus style.

“You can’t leave so soon,” Alex screamed in his ear, voice echoing inside Hank’s head and making him wince. But that was Alex. Always a little too close for comfort. “The party is just gettin’ good!” Bobby nodded in agreement, blonde mop waggling like a bobble head toy.

Blurred from alcohol and bouncing around with their identical crew cuts, they were nearly impossible to tell apart.

“C’mon,” Bobby wheedled. “You can’t say no to _uuuuuuus_.” He intoned seriously, face the picture of innocence. His slurred words rather ruined the picture, but Hank still wasn’t going to say no. Contrary to popular belief, he _did_ know how to have fun.

He put on a grumpy face (yes, he was perfectly aware it looked like a sleepy turtle, thank you very much), and dived back into the fray. One day he was going to wake up and be forty, comfortable with his tenure and his cartography courses and whatever else he thought was fun when he was middle aged. But no matter how happy he was then, he was always going to look back at these days, at these friends, and think of them fondly.

That was the last thing he remembered thinking before the crowd swallowed them up, Bobby and Alex’s arms looped around him as they attempted a sloppy kick line. The faces were blurred, the lights were warm, and Hank was _happy_.

                                                                                                               ~~  
~~

* * *

 

 

It was Monday morning again, and Hank was back to wishing he had never joined a fraternity in the first place. The beer bottles and discarded clothing were still strewn throughout the house, despite Hank having put Kurt and Warren on clean up duty after the party. In retrospect, he sort of understands why that failed so horribly.

 

If it were a different morning, Hank might have stopped to make a fuss. But not today.

He hurried down the long hallway, banging on doors as he went. The smell of bacon wafting up from the kitchen told Hank that at least one other person was awake and functioning, but that still left a good fifteen-odd people lying about.

 

He slammed an open palm against Bobby’s door, taking care to avoid the tattered longboard stickers that were plastered across the peeling paint. “Bobby, time to get up!”

 

A muffled groan answered him, and then silence. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Hank decided to take that as a win, trudging over to the room Kurt and Warren shared, filled with apprehension. Warren was a well-known day drinker, and it wouldn’t be out of character for him to throw something hard when unceremoniously roused.

 

A loud “No!” Followed by a thump that sounded suspiciously like someone falling out of bed resounded through the room. Hank shrugged and headed for the kitchen, taking the stairs two at a time. That was about all he could do for them right now.

 

A plate of bacon was waiting for him at the table, along with a half-empty jug of orange juice and a stack of toast. Scott was standing at the stove with his rattiest shirt on. Hank had noticed he only ever wore it while cooking. If the scorch marks up the curtains from last year’s attempt at making Christmas dinner were any indication of skill level, he also understood why.

 

Alex was sitting at the table, nursing a cup of lukewarm coffee (and a hangover judging by his protests at the noise level). He gave Hank a smirk and a sly thumbs up of approval as Hank reached for some of bacon. Hank ignored him. It was far too early to be questioning the intricacies of Alex Summers’s facial expressions.

 

“I gotta run, can I take this?” He asked, not really waiting around for an answer. He wasn’t going to be later than he already was because Scott refused to share breakfast.

 

Loud noises of protest followed him into the entryway, but he ignored them. Scott didn’t have class until noon, he could make more.

 

* * *

 

 

The upside to being in the most popular fraternity at New York State College was that teachers often gave you a pass for a being late or turning in sub-par work. Especially the teachers who had been a part of your fraternity when they were in school.

 

The downside of being in a popular fraternity was that Erik Lensherr managed to defy every single one of these rules at once. Despite being the leader of his own sorority, Kappa Kappa X, on campus, he hated anyone involved in Greek life with every fiber of his being. It didn’t matter that Hank frequently turned in papers that received 112%, or that he had never played beer pong in his life. Erik still lumped him in with the masses.

 

Today that meant picking on him by calling him out to answer every single question that came up in class—even some of the ones directed at Erik himself.

 

Usually Hank would love the chance to show off to the teacher by answering everything correctly, but his mind was elsewhere today, and he wanted it to stay that way.

 

The pressure of midterms was approaching, as well as the added stress of beginning to plan the Xavier’s annual Holiday party. Despite the falling out they’d had years ago, Raven and Charles still insisted on co-hosting the family party every year. And every year Hank somehow found himself in the middle of it.

At least the pledges were coming up to initiation soon, and he wouldn’t have to worry about having so many of them underfoot anymore.

 

“Mr. McCoy.” Hank shot up in his seat, unaware that he’d even been slouching in the first place.

 

“Mr. McCoy.” Erik repeated. Hank could see him gritting his teeth from the back of the room.

“Yes, Professor Lensherr?”

A lazy, cat-that-ate-the-canary grin spread over Erik’s face. It was a look that said he had Hank trapped and he knew it. “Since you have obviously been so focused on our lesson today, I’ll have you come up here and demonstrate what actually paying attention looks like for the rest class.”

Hank wanted to snort. Erik looked so pleased with himself. There was nothing Hank would like more than to wipe that smug grin off his face.

 

“Sure, professor.” He made a show of slowly pushing his chair back and walking down the stairs to the front of the lecture hall. He paused in front of the white board, just enough to look like hesitation. He wanted to really see Erik be surprised by this.

 

Of course, he knew exactly what he was doing. Math was easy, math was simple. Math had rules that you could learn and follow without difficulty, so Hank had. Since the fourth grade. Let it never be said that Hank McCoy was not a chronically overachieving genius.

 

The sound of marker scratching moved quietly through the room before the loud _snap_ of the cap being clicked back on brought everyone back to reality. Hank stepped away to admire his handiwork. “There you go, professor. I hope that helps.” He moved back to his seat, regretting the line even as it fell from his lips. It was the kind of thing Alex would say, and Hank hated the other boy for rubbing off on him like that.

 

He stood frozen for a moment, awaiting the punishment he was sure to receive.

 

“Out of my classroom, McCoy.” Erik ordered. Hank hurried to comply.

                                                                                                                        

* * *

 

Sure, now he had more time to work on his dissertation. But he also had more time to work on his dissertation. Or, to sit and stare at it blankly the way he had been for the past few weeks. Ever since fast tracking into the graduate program a year ago, Hank had been stuck with his research. Actually, if he were being honest with himself, he was pretty much stuck in every aspect of his life. Nothing changed. Nothing happened.

Hank silently paced the hallway in front of the water fountain, anxiety bubbling nervously in his stomach. He wondered what Charles would do in this situation. Nothing, probably. The man was notorious for winging things by the seat of his pants, but somehow managing to create something brilliant in the nick of time. It was part of his easy charm, and everyone who knew him loved him for it. That included NYS’s less-than-friendly Art Teacher, Logan Howlett (who notably hated most of the other teachers).

Erik was the only one who wasn’t charmed by Charles, and that was understandable. Erik hated anything that wasn’t meticulously worked into his tightly-laced schedule. Raven had started to explain their history years before, going into great detail about the fight they’d had before Erik left the Delta’s, but it had been far too gossipy for Hank’s liking, so he’d escaped the conversation as quickly as he could. As it were, he knew (at best) the basics.

Really though, knowing that his childhood idol had been involved with a man petty enough to take up leadership of a rival chapter after quitting the Delta’s was all he needed. If abandoning the Delta’s were a punishable offense (and Hank couldn’t be certain Scott hadn’t tried to make it one), Erik would be behind bars for the highest of treasons.

Couple that with the fact that Erik had been far too smug about his new title as First Male Head of a Sorority in NYS’s history, and add on one count of accepting the position solely to upstage Charles’s accomplishment of becoming the youngest Chapter head in the college history, and you had yourself life behind bars.

He shook his head to redirect his trailing thoughts. He was smart. Some had called him a genius, even. If anyone could finish this dissertation, it was him. He had friends, people that he cared about who could greatly benefit from attention focused on genetic mutation, and he couldn’t let them down.

His thoughts flitted to Raven, who had been so insecure about her mismatched yellow-brown eye that she had once cut choppy bangs into her hair to hide it.

That was who he wanted to help. Anyone who felt like less than perfect because they didn’t fit society’s idea of normal.

 

But just telling himself that over and over again did nothing, so he gave up and trudged back to the house, heart heavy.

 

                                                                                                                   

* * *

 

 

Hank was about five minutes away from the house when he got the message. _‘chapter emergency. come quickly.’_ Usually he wouldn’t be concerned; there was a chapter emergency every couple of weeks. But things had been quiet recently, so he felt a little overdo for a crisis.

He walked as fast as he could back to the house, preparing himself for whatever was about to come. The last time it had been a broken pipe flooding the entire lower level of the house, and the time before that Warren had lost their rent money in a poker game.  

But whatever he had been expecting, whatever he was preparing himself for, it was definitely not to see a perfectly constructed version of their living room placed on the front lawn.

He stood and stared at the furniture for a moment, puzzled. _Huh_.

After taking a few seconds to wonder if he could just leave and avoid whatever was going on, he decided he had to jump right in feet first and try to fix things. Lunch with Raven might need to pushed out an hour.

He poked his head through the front door. “Um, good morning, everybody.” Fourteen pairs of eyes blinked back at him, frozen in silence for about the time it took to count to three. And then a wave of noise greeted him as fourteen different voices all tried to explain the situation to him at full volume.

He swiveled his head from side to side, surveying the scene as he managed to catch every fourth or so word. All of the house members were stationed on the foldout chairs they used for barbeques, laid out in a semi-circle in the middle of the now-empty living room. Scott was the only one not participating in the screaming, his hand stroking his chin as he paced the floor where the couch usually was.

Hank cleared his throat. “Guys, can you stop for a minute please?” It took a few tries, but they all quieted down enough for him to get the gist of what was going on. “Wait wait wait. Did you say _Kappa Kappa X_ did this? Why would they do this?”

Instinctively he turned to look at Alex. If there was anyone in the entire school better known for causing problems, Hank hadn’t met them. Alex stuck out his tongue and shrugged.

“Because of _tradition_.” Warren spat, rubbing his knuckles like he desperately wanted to punch something.

Scott held up a hand to silence him. “Thank you, Warren.” He turned back to Hank. “You know what went down with Professor Xavier and Professor Lehnsherr, right?”

Alex snorted. “Of _course_ he has. He’s _friends_ with Charles. They hang out and have nerdy sleepovers and shit.”

“ _Thank you_ , Alex.” The vein in Scott’s forehead was starting to throb. He looked expectantly to Hank, who froze for a moment before he realized Scott expected him to answer.

“Oh! Um, yeah.” He nodded. He found himself glad for the first time ever that Raven had walked him through the whole incident despite his best efforts to escape.

“Great. So you know all about the chapter wars that have plagued this school for the past twenty years.” It wasn’t a question, but Hank nodded his agreement anyway. In truth, he’d heard only vague whispers about it, since neither house had taken part in any antics since Scott became president of Delta X.

Scott barreled on, barely waiting for an answer. “In ’96 the Kappa’s scheduled the Delta headquarters to be demolished. The Delta’s retaliated by stealing the student records from the admissions office and publishing all of their information in the school paper.” Scott slowly walked the length of floor between the two windows, hands clasped in front of him. He looked like an angry dad giving a lecture. “In ’01 the Kappa’s put bleach in the Delta’s shampoo. We retaliated by stealing the steering wheels to all of their cars. And in ’12 we shut down the so-called _prank wars_ for good, by threatening to tell the dean that the head cheerleader—who was a Kappa at the time—was using performance enhancers.” Bobby sucked in a breath and looked disapproving, his sport medicine training kicking in. “ And the peace has lasted five years. Until now.”

“Huh.” Hank pursed his lips, trying to wrap his mind around the information. It was all a bit dramatic for his liking. “So why have they started up again?” He didn’t want to voice his belief that it had simply been too many years since Scott’s threat about turning in the football player for anyone to care. Luckily, Alex took care of that for him.

“New leadership.” Alex snapped his fingers. All eyes swiveled to look at him. “Y’know, Irene Adler graduated in the spring. They have to have voted on a new president by now. I wonder which of those assholes is wearing the crown now….”

Damn it.” Scott said, brow still furrowed. “We need to find that out.”

Hank shook his head, feeling a little out of his depth. If this turned out anything like the other schemes he’d been dragged into, he was definitely missing lunch with Raven altogether. “…How are we supposed to do that, exactly?”

                                                                                                                  

* * *

 

Apparently all it took was chatting up the best friend of the boyfriend of one the Kappa’s. According to Jubilee (who had told them three times during their meeting that she thought their chapter was the better of the two houses), her friend Remy had mentioned something about Erik’s daughter taking over presidency of the house, much to the frustration of her twin brother, Pietro, who believed the act to be proof that there was clear favoritism in the family.

“But please please don’t mention that I told you, ‘cause Marie only tells him this stuff in confidence, and then he tells me in confidence, and if it gets out that you broke that confidence, he’s only gonna be mad at me.” She said, snapping her gum in time with their strides across the quad. From what Hank had gathered, Marie was a Kappa, while her boyfriend Remy and his best friend Jubilee were not. Or maybe he’d gotten that backwards. Either way, Wanda Maximoff was in charge now. And that meant trouble for the Delta’s.

Wanda was a theater kid, and therefore it was in her nature to be dramatic and over-the-top. She also had a bit of a temper, and Hank had learned through the rumors (all true, according to Raven) that she’d slugged some guy in her Economics class for looking at her chest when she bent over. With all this new information on hand, Hank wished he’d torn his bid to Delta to shreds when he’d gotten it.

Hank nodded forcefully. They wouldn’t need anything more than a name to complete the next part of their plan. Which was….not something Hank had been allowed to know about.

That in and of itself concerned him, especially since he’d noticed Scott’s tendency to overcompensate when he thought things were about to go under.

Hopefully, that wouldn’t be the case here, when house integrity and safety of the members was on the line. It had become clear in these past few days that the Delta’s took attacks to their house very seriously. And since Hank was officially and forever a Delta X—he had to take it seriously, too.

 

                                                                                                                       

* * *

 

 

The most important thing for Hank to remember was that things hadn’t always been this way. Years ago, long before Hank had joined the chapter, there had been a fight between Charles, then-president of Delta X and Erik, then-vice president. When they decided that their differences were unreconcilable, Erik had left and, years later, after everyone believed him to be long gone, joined the staff at the school and accepted the open position of Kappa Kappa X chapter supervisor.

Now, despite his insistence that he hated members of the Greek Letter Organization, Erik Lehnsherr was in charge of roughly thirty of them every year. And, thanks to the competitive nature of both men, Charles and Erik had turned their supervisor roles into a chance to one-up the other.

When Charles had announced his inclusion initiative, designed to help LGBTQ students feel welcome in the chapter, Erik had unveiled his own plan to help support scholarship students through their school career. It had gone on like that for the last fifteen years.

And by now it had been so many years that no one really knew exactly what had caused the original split anymore, but there were so many crazy rumors floating around that Hank didn’t want to learn the truth.

Not that knowing any of that would change the situation at hand, because they would still have the beginnings of a prank war on their hands, and absolutely no way to stop things from escalating.

Despite the obvious hesitation that Hank felt about participating, he’d been brought into the ranks of prank planning with much enthusiasm. Not his enthusiasm, of course, but someone’s. And that was apparently all that mattered.

As it were, he was currently sitting at their restored kitchen table with a handful of dollar store balloons and three gallons of snow cone flavoring.

 

                                                                                                                       

* * *

 

 

As regrettable as Hank found it that their start-of-school picnics usually left them with an overabundance of uneaten food to somehow get rid of, he was now a little grateful that whoever ordered the desserts (snow-cone flavoring included) had bought too much.

Of course, they could always switch the flavouring out for piss, and fill the balloons with that if they ran out, as Sean kept suggesting.

For some reason, Hank wasn’t too inspired by that plan.

“You ready to go?” Bobby hollered enthusiastically, giving him an exaggerated thumbs-up. It was clear that some of the members were more excited about this ambush than others.

Hank sighed. “Locked and loaded, captain.” If his hands hadn’t been busy hauling a bucket filled with syrup-balloons, he would have mock saluted.

“Great. Come this way.”

Hank’s eyes widened as he followed Bobby out of the house and saw the two trucks loaded with buckets exactly like his. “Are you sure this is necessary? That’s a lot of ammo.”

Bobby raised an eyebrow. “You backing out? Scared to get a little _sticky_?”

“I’m not backing out. Just questioning the ethics of this plan.” He ignored the comment about getting sticky. Bobby was the only person who could give Alex a run for his money when it came to trying to get a rise out of Hank, and Hank would be damned if he gave the other man the satisfaction of rising to the bait.

“Ethics has nothing to do with this.” Warren cut in, sandy cherub hair contrasting with the wicked grin that was spreading across his face. “Get in, I’m driving.”

Argument momentarily forgotten in favor of hanging on for dear life, Hank resigned himself to helping whether he liked it or not.

 

                                                                                                             

* * *

 

 

By the time they were at the car lot where Kappa Kappa X was hosting their annual car wash, Hank had been given enough time to thoroughly start to hate himself for agreeing to this. The lot was pretty busy this year, people and cars moving through the space slowly. Half of him wanted to be proud of Raven for organizing such a successful event, and the other half wanted to pissed off at her for refusing to help him organize Delta X’s car wash last spring.

The last place Hank wanted to be the middle of a direct confrontation between the two houses.

He stepped out of the cab, ready to tell the other boys why he thought assaulting a bunch of helpless bystanders with syrup filled water-balloons was a bad idea. Unfortunately, the fourteen boys scrambling out of the trucks as soon as they stopped moving made it difficult to voice his concerns.

So did the barrage of syrup-balloons flying at anyone and anything within a three yard radius of the event.

Girls and boys alike shrieked and tried to take cover from the sticky missiles, but there was no escaping. Bobby had outdone himself this time, setting members around the entire periphery of the lot for maximum damage.

If Hank weren’t so terrified, he might have been impressed.

 

                                                                                                                   

* * *

 

 

It had been almost a week without retaliation, long enough for the house to grow complacent in their fear of a return attack, but not long enough for them to forget it entirely. In fact, everyone in Delta was simultaneously on the edge of their seat and far too relaxed.

Hank included.

The first few days had involved a lot of tiptoeing around the house, doublechecking locked doors, and getting suspicious at small noises, but now that the initial panic period was over, Hank felt comfortable enough to journey downstairs to grab a snack—even though it was creeping into the early hours of the morning.

His sock feet shuffled into the kitchen quietly, trying his hardest not to wake anyone else up. Just because he suffered from chronic insomnia didn’t mean they had to suffer as well.

He was so focused on being quiet that he didn’t realize anything was wrong until he’d already bit into the stiff, waxy apple from the fruit bowl.

“Shit!” He exclaimed, a rare expletive falling from his lips along with the mouthful of fake fruit. He dropped the apple into the sink with a gag. The heavy plastic taste in his mouth was enough to make him feel a little ill, but he choked that down as he stared at the fruit bowl in horror.

_They'd been pranked again_.

Despite the silliness of it, he felt a little betrayed. Of course, logic would reason out that one wax apple in a bowl of real fruit was hardly likely, and with a heavy sigh he set about pinching and squeezing the rest of the fruit. _Yep_ , they were all wax.

Kurt came skidding into the room. “What ze hell is going on? I heard yelling!” He came to a stop in front of Hank, taking in the dismantled fruit bowl on the counter. “Did you get a little hungry?”

“Not for this.” Hank said, the fuzzy taste of wax still heavy on his tongue. Kurt tilted his head, a question clearly struggling its way out. Hank spared him from trying to understand the situation. “It’s wax. All of it. Not real food.”

“Why would Scott buy that? Was it for a table decoration? You shouldn’t eat the decorations.” Kurt admonished.  He clearly wasn’t getting suspicious the way Hank had.

“No, Kurt. I think….” He trailed off, pulling the fridge doors open and taking a glance inside. Under the harsh, fluorescent brightness of the fridge light, the shiny, plastic-y surface of the food on the shelves was much more apparent. Had Hank gone for the milk or a yogurt, he would have immediately realized something was wrong.

“Oh wow.” Kurt had come up behind him now, head peeking over Hank’s shoulder to take in the perfect formation of food in the fridge. Even the fake eggs were right where Hank had left them that morning. The Kappa’s had scary organizational skills.

Hank took a brief moment to be jealous.

“We should probably tell the others, right?”

Kurt nodded.

                                                                                                                 

* * *

 

 

It had taken the better part of four hours to clean everything up—apparently the Kappa’s dedication to their task meant they’d broken into the garage where the extra food was kept and swapped that out as well—but that didn’t mean they hadn’t come across the occasional cracker box or bag of grapes that were real. Hank couldn’t work out whether the Kappa’s had left the real food on purpose to psych them out, or if it had simply been an oversight.

Knowing the precision Erik administered his end-of-the-year exams with, Hank was inclined to say it was intentional.

Thankfully, Sean had volunteered to taste-test anything they were unsure about. With the help of the four other boys Kurt had managed to rouse, they got done with enough time for Hank to catch the last few hours of sleep before his morning classes.

Of course, the late-night distraction meant he was perpetually distracted the whole day, and had no fewer than three teachers have to repeat questions they’d directed at him. He blamed himself for being such a model student. If he didn’t spend work so hard to answer every question in class on a regular basis, nobody would have any expectations of him.

Somehow that argument didn’t seem like one anyone would accept.

He made sure to sit at the back in his Genetic Theory class (a choice that led to the teacher marking him absent for the first ten minutes when his usual desk in the front row was left empty) so he’d be able to space off without it being too obvious. His schoolwork was clearly suffering from the added distraction of their new prank war on the Kappa’s, and Hank intended to do everything he could to fix that.

At a later date. Right now he’d caught a glimpse of the football team doing warm-ups out the window, and that clearly took precedence. He stared unashamedly through the glass, confident that the seven rows in front of him were hiding his complete lack of focus. Where was this sexual freedom when Raven had tried pot in high school and asked if he wanted to make out?

Just one thing in a long list of things in life he’d regretted saying no to immediately after the fact.

It wasn’t that he found himself particularly attracted to men--he appreciated the hard lines of their bodies in the same way he appreciated women’s--but he’d never been the type to feel attraction to a woman a first glance, either. So maybe it was less of a _guy_ thing, and more of a _people in general_ thing.

He had to admit, there was a certain power in the way the football players ran drills that made it difficult to look away. Even Alex managed to look somewhat dignified out there. Something about his solid frame executing the intricate plays with ease made Hank’s stomach feel funny.

He was really good at this, despite how lazy he seemed to be at home, and it occurred to Hank that maybe Alex really could put the time in to learn and work hard when there was something he cared about. It was almost funny the way Hank had never realized that Alex must have gotten his football scholarship by actually being a good player.

But he’d never admit that realization to Alex. The friendlier the other boy got, the more Hank felt scrutinized, and he was unwilling to give Alex the advantage of knowing he was the starring role of Hank’s daydreams.

Which sounded creepy. Wow, he really needed to work on this _being chill_ thing. Alex could definitely never know he thinking this stuff.

He settled back in his seat, a bright blush lighting up his cheeks. He really should be paying attention to class, and not staring out the window. It had nothing to do with the funny, fluttery feeling Hank was starting to get. Still lost in his thoughts, the deep drone of his professor relaxed him enough to wish he’d gotten a solid eight hours of sleep the night before. At least he could get caught up tonight, if he went to bed around ten.

 

                                                                                                                    

* * *

 

 

And suddenly it was midnight. Hank should have been in bed hours ago—he had an early class tomorrow, damnit!—but _nooo_ , the fraternity needed him. Apparently he’d signed away his soul when he pledged the chapter.

Since no one else cared about their education in the slightest, they’d all teased him until he joined.

He suddenly understood the peer pressure his mother had so warned him about.

Black paint dripped down his arm as he frantically painted the letter _A_ onto the side of the Kappa Kappa X house.

“Remind me again why this is a good idea?” He whispered at Armando. The other boy was up to his elbows mixing paint, and he looked like he was regretting every second of it.

“Because Scott told us to, and Scott gets what he wants one way or another?”

 

Well, that part was true, at least.

 

“Shut up, guys!” Kurt hissed before Hank could answer. “Do you want zem to hear you?”

 

No. No, Hank did not.

 

He swiped at the _A_ one last time before dropping his brush into the bushes and stepping back to admire their handiwork. _Delta X roxs!_  Was now emblazoned over the entryway to the Kappa house. It was a little juvenile, but they were still a frat house regardless of how progressive.

Sean let out a whoop from his station as lookout. No one had asked him to keep watch, but he felt it was an important job nonetheless. Hank threw up a hand and waved at him, letting him know that they were done and heading out.

 

Unlike Kappa had done with their pranks, the boys of Delta X were in no mood to clean up after themselves. The brushes and empty paint cans littered the grass and walkways, and there were rolls of plastic wrap draped across the bushes. Hank thought that was a nice touch.

 

Warren and Sam were tossing one of the empty paint cans back and forth as they ran across the lawn. It was nice to see Warren getting along with one of the other boys for a change.

But it would be nicer to not get caught.

 

Hank picked up the pace, practically running back to the house. The rest of the boys followed him, all in various states of elation. It was a weird feeling being so connected to so many different people. None of the boys were people Hank would have chosen to hang out with had he not known them. And yet here they were, some of his closest friends.

 

“Please tell me we get to do that again!” Jamie yelled the second they turned onto their street. Being the youngest pledge, he tended to get excited about the littlest things they did. It was endearing.

 

Alex and Warren let out twin yells of approval, and Hank wanted to shush them, but couldn’t bring himself to.

 

Sure they were running through the streets making enough noise to wake the dead, but they were happy. That was what mattered.

 

Scott felt differently. Being chapter president, he had the most to lose from getting caught. He ushered everyone inside in guerilla warfare fashion, ordering them all to clean up and go to bed with a seriousness in his tone that dismissed all arguments.

 

“Don’t you think this is a bit extreme?” Alex whined. Hank was grateful. Alex was the only person who could get through to Scott when he started acting like this.

 

“This is _war_ , Alex.”  Scott whispered up the stairs like that explained everything. For all Hank knew, it might. Alex tossed up his hands and disappeared into the kitchen. Hank hesitated for a moment, the hunger he felt warring with his desire not to be alone with Alex. In the end, hunger won, and he followed Alex into the back room.

 

                                                                                                                    

* * *

 

 

Enough food to feed an army was littering the counter when Hank finally pushed through the swinging door. He stood gaping at Alex for a moment. There was no way a fully grown adult needed that much to eat.

 

“Are you planning on sharing some of that?” He questioned quietly. Alex startled a little, turning slightly to eye Hank. “With you? Sure.” It was a weird response given their tense history, but Hank was more than willing to let it go if it got him a late dinner.

 

Alex motioned to one of the bar stools with his mayonnaise covered knife. “Sit.”

 

Hank obeyed, feeling more than a little apprehensive. He never knew what to expect with Alex.

“Mayo okay?” Hank nodded. He was too hungry to care at the moment. Alex smiled a little in acknowledgement.

 

He almost wanted to start up a conversation, ask how Alex was, hear about his day, something. But it was fascinating watching his dexterous fingers slap ingredients onto the bread, and Hank kept forgetting to speak up.

 

His fascination quickly turned to something akin with disgust as he realized just what all Alex was putting on. He had at least three meats, pickles, onions, and tomatoes, mayo and mustard, American cheese, cheddar cheese, and blue cheese dressing. “Are you sure that’s edible?” Hank questioned incredulously.

 

Alex paused his ministrations long enough to shoot a glare Hank’s way. “Yes, I’m sure. But if you don’t want one…” He trailed off, looking apologetic. But Hank knew he was just being a little shit. Alex was well aware that he’d won already.

 

Hank huffed and grabbed at the finished sandwich, stuffing a little lettuce in before taking a large bite. It wasn’t _good_ , per say. But it wasn’t bad either. He chewed thoughtfully, realizing that Alex was pretending not to watch him from his peripherals.

 

“Interesting texture.” He offered. Alex snorted. “Gee, thanks. Just what I like to hear.” He turned around to rinse the knife off in the sink, and Hank found himself suddenly worried he’d offended the blonde. That was a new feeling. Their relationship was built off grudging respect and a lot of teasing. What did they have if they didn’t have that?

 

“I don’t hate it,” He said decisively around another bite. That was about as good as a review as a sandwich with mustard on it was going to get from him. Hank hated mustard.

Alex’s shoulders went up and down. It took Hank a moment to realize that he was chuckling. “I’ll take that. Not all of us can be culinary geniuses, you know.” Something in his tone made Hank want to blush.

 

“You think I cook well?” Alex shrugged noncommittally, muttering something indiscernible. He’d been acting so weird lately; Hank honestly didn’t know what to make of it.

 

“I mean, I’ve never received a Michelin Star, so I’m not really that good, but that’s flattering. And it makes me much more inspired to finish this.” He waved the sandwich at Alex.

 

The smirk—no, _grin_. It didn’t have enough malice in it to be a smirk—had returned. “Watch yourself, McCoy. That might be the only chance you have to experience pure inspiration before it’s been discovered.”

 

Alex pulled up a bar stool next to Hank, talking while he moved. It never failed to amaze Hank how he could do that so seamlessly. There always seemed to be a disconnect when Hank tried it, something keeping his words and actions from fitting together so perfectly.

 

He pressed a hand to his chest. “Wow, are you really sure I’m the person you want to be sharing this feat of pure brainpower with? Don’t you want to save it to show someone really important? For all you know, I could steal it and sell it myself. I’m _very_ well connected.” Sure, if by _very well_ _connected_ he meant he’d spent the night on Charles Xavier’s floor before.

 

Alex knocked their shoulders together, something that would have jostled Hank off his stool had he not realized what Alex was doing a second before the fact and tensed up. His bare forearm brushed against Hank’s, sending static shocks through his arm. His eyes flicked up and connected with Hank’s, deep and far too blue. “Nah, I’d trust you.” He pulled away slowly, leaving a spot of too-warm skin where they’d been touching.

Hank wanted to ask what the hell just happened, but Alex was moving on, mouth running a mile a minute about anything and everything. It still stunned Hank just how much Alex had changed since he first met the stoic teen with the penchant for starting fights in the cafeteria. He was almost a real boy, now.

For how far Hank come in the past two years, Alex’s progress made him look like he was crawling.

“I’m glad we’re here.” The noise in the kitchen abruptly stopped, and Hank realized he’d interrupted Alex. He struggled for an apology, words always seeming to fail him when he needed them the most. Alex pressed his mouth together in a thin line, but he didn’t look displeased. He just looked…pensive.

“I almost didn’t make it here, you know.” His eyes were fixed down at his scuffed sneakers, and Hank got the distinct impression that Alex believed whatever he said next would make or break their friendship.

“I got mixed up with some bad people a few years back--don’t ask me how—and for a while it looked like I was gonna be nailed, locked away in some room somewhere without a future. Scott wouldn’t stand for it. He-he fought for me, harder than I’ve ever seen anyone fight, and they let me go. Let me come here, even.” He paused to huff out a dry sound, almost a chuckle, almost a cough, and scrubbed a hand over his short hair. “On probation, of course, but it’s something, right?”

Hank stayed silent, unsure of what to say. How to say it. Alex probably wouldn’t want him to interrupt anyway.

“This place was kind of like a second chance for me, you know? College always seemed so… _impossible_. But Scott made it, and I just couldn’t bring myself to let him down again. So I applied here. And the rest is history.”

But it really wasn’t. Hank hadn’t known any of that. Still felt like he was missing key pieces of the collage that made up Alex Summers. But this wasn’t the time for questions.

“Wow.” Alex’s shoulders scrunched up even more at the whispered word, looking every bit like he wished he could disappear into the floor. Hank carefully watching the top of Alex’s head where it was bent over the granite counter-top, trying to decide what he wanted to say. He knew Alex well enough to guess that an apology would be taken the wrong way. But silence was worse than anything else. He settled on the teasing humor they had been passing back and forth all year.

“I can’t believe you just complained about that.”

Alex’s head shot up, confusion written across his features. Hank barreled on.

“You know Kurt had to travel to this country hidden on the luggage rack of the Euro rail, right? Then he smuggled himself onto a cruise ship by dressing up as one of the blackjack dealers for the card tables, and worked his way across the ocean. And you think you had it bad.”

Alex barked out a laugh. His shoulders had relaxed and his eyes were clear. The tension was gone. “I don’t believe a single word of that.”

Hank shrugged. “I don’t either. But it’s still more creative than anything you’ve guessed so far.”

It really shouldn’t be so much fun to tease their housemate, but Kurt was always talking about his tough childhood without any further explanation, so a little bit of creative embellishment felt necessary.

“Right, I guess I’ll have to step up my game.” Alex smothered a yawn, his tanned hand coming up to rub at his sleep-filled eyes. “Maybe tomorrow, though. I’m exhausted. Night Hank.”

Hank raised a hand to wave him off, but Alex was already sauntering out of the room, socked feet making quiet _swish swish_ noises against the floorboards. His shirt was rucked up in the back and his pale skin was glowing in the dim lighting.

 

For some reason it made Hank’s stomach drop out like he was on a rollercoaster.

 

                                                                                                                       

* * *

 

**OCTOBER.**

The second Tuesday in October, Hank woke up with the strange sense that something was amiss.

It wasn’t a dawning suspicion, or a bit of fear creeping up on him. It was a sudden _bam!_ Of realization that woke him from a very nice dream about being an archeologist (Indiana Jones style, of course, not Eve O’Conner style).

He rolled out of bed, freezing when the room dissolved into loud crinkling. Spread across his floor like carpeting was a massive expanse of plastic wrap. Not plastic wrap like the kind you use to save sandwiches with, but the plastic wrap that old ladies cover their furniture in.

A quick glance around the room affirmed the suspicion that most everything in the room was covered as well.

Hank frowned down at the mess. There was a slight chance this was Alex—he had, after all, spent the better part of a year tormenting Hank with salt in his coffee and red food dye in his light laundry loads—but Hank doubted it. This was too precisely executed to be Alex.

The boy was mischievous, but he walked like an elephant on roller blades. Hank would have heard that from a mile away. This was, without a doubt, the Kappa’s. “ _Guuuuys_!” He hollered. “It’s happened again!”

The squeak of feet on a plastic outside his room told him that _yes_ , the rest of the house was probably suffering from the same affliction. In fact, the whole hallway and down the stairs was covered, as well as most of the kitchen. This was starting to get ridiculous, waking up every couple weeks with something new and crazy in their home.

He was more than a little disappointed in their security system. A fact which, when brought up to Scott, simply left him with more questions than answers.

“Oh, we don’t have one.” Scott told him, distracted with trying to cut the plastic wrap off the kitchen cupboard so he could get breakfast.

“We don’t what now?” Hank asked, trying to keep the disbelief in his tone to a minimum.

“Yeah. It didn’t--it didn’t, uh, make sense for us…..” Scott succeeded in slipping his box cutter under the tape the Kappa’s had used. “—Didn’t make sense to get one.”

Frustrated, Hank moved in between the cabinet and Scott. “ _Why not_?”

Scott gave him a look, but lowered the box cutter and focused his attention on Hank. Finally.

“Because we’re a frat house. Nobody wants to rob a bunch of college students who eat beer and top ramen for breakfast. Besides, with all the parties and people going in and out at weird times of the night, it would have been a hassle to keep up on arming and disarming it. Don’t look at me like that. The house has never had a security system outside of a couple deadbolts, and we’ve always been fine.”

Privately, Hank disagreed that people breaking in to prank them was any better than people breaking in to steal things, but he wasn’t the president. It wasn’t his decision. And it wasn’t his job to convince Scott to get one.

He clucked his tongue, the only sign of his disagreement he'd let out, and snagged some cereal from the newly freed cabinet. He had to eat it dry from the box, but it was better than nothing.

Better especially, he thought dryly, than wax fruit.

Scott moved on to the fridge, a look of intense determination on his face. Hank was pretty sure if he just stayed out of the way he'd have milk in about five minutes.

But of course, keeping his opinion to himself had never been a strong suit of Hank’s, and he only managed to stay silent for about a minute before he couldn’t keep it in any longer.

“Maybe we should get one _now_ , though. Since we’re having issues now. Think of it like tennis. You don’t change the threading on your racket if it isn’t coming loose. But when it starts fraying, you should get it fixed.” He tried to get on Scott’s level, using the other boy’s interests to sway him.

Scott stared blankly at him. “You know I don’t play tennis, right? I’m a med student. I help rich idiots heal their tennis injuries, not suffer them myself.”

Hank took a moment to laugh at how similar Scott and Alex sounded when they talked about rich people. It was clearly a shared complex. “Right. I know that. I was just trying to make a relatable comparison.” He said, shoving his hands deep into his pockets to keep from fiddling awkwardly with them. “So…” He prodded. “That security system?”

Scott sighed. “We don’t need one. Do you have any idea how much it costs to have one? Or how easy it is for them to shut your service off if the cops get called over because someone forgot the password one too many times? It’s not a good option.

Hank wanted to huff, and try harder to convince Scott that this _was_ a good option, but Scott wasn’t really one to be easily worn down by insistence. He did live with Alex, after all. In the end, Hank was forced into silence, pulling the plastic off the appliances with frustration.

He was just glad the Kappa’s hadn’t stapled the damn stuff on.

 

                                                                                                             

* * *

 

 

There was an unspoken set of rules that came with the territory of being a frat boy. These, of course, came in addition to the regulations each house was expected to follow--but for the members of Delta X, their rules were far more important.

 

Alex liked to laugh and call it a _bro code_ , but he’d still rather eat his own socks than break it. The rest of the members felt the same way.

 

So of course, on this particular morning, Hank was breaking three of them.

 

The first being, of course, fraternization with the enemy. The enemy including anyone belonging to, or associated with, Kappa Kappa X. For Hank, that meant Raven was off limits.

 

The second rule was the one he’d get the most complaints about breaking, but he didn’t care. Having to buy coffee for everyone in the house anytime you were at Starbucks was a stupid rule. And not particularly time efficient. So that left him sitting in a corner booth sipping at a singular mocha.

 

The last rule was the one that no one ever broke. To break this rule was like breaking the bonds of brotherhood, and nobody had been brave enough (or was it stupid enough?) to do that yet. Skipping a chapter meeting was like skipping brunch with the queen. You could do it, but you had to be prepared for the consequences.

Usually Hank would have pushed through any discomfort to be there, but he just couldn’t go back to the house today and sit through the house meeting with Alex’s gaze fixed to the back of his head again.

 

He hadn’t minded the first time it happened, nearly a month ago. It had seemed innocent at first, almost like Alex didn’t even realize he was doing it. But it quickly grew obnoxious, distracting Hank from everything else around him. How was he supposed to focus on the group when he was busy wondering if he’d forgotten to brush his hair that morning, or if he had a tag sticking out of his collar.

 

He’d considered saying something to Alex about it, asking him to stop, or questioning his actions, but there had never been a good time to bring it up. Alex was, after all, much too complicated to bother figuring out. So, like most confrontations, he ended up letting it drop.

 

But that didn’t mean it wasn’t there at the back of his mind, a niggling little reminder that something was off.

 

Raven dropped into the seat in front of him, tugging her jacket off by the sleeves. “God, the traffic is a _mess_. It’s a wonder anyone drives anywhere anymore.” She huffed. Her manicured fingers were quickly tapping a text as she spoke.

 

“Hi Raven.” He sipped at his coffee while he waited for her to finish. It could be thirty seconds or an hour until she was done. There was no in between with Raven.

 

She locked the phone with a click and smiled up brightly at him. “How are you doing today? Sorry we had to cancel lunch earlier, I’m sure this will make up for it. I can buy you a muffin?” Something about the chipper tone made him suspicious. Was she here to play another prank on him? Warily, he pushed his empty scone plate to the middle of the table like a shield between them.

 

“I’m okay, thanks for asking. I just had a scone. That’s fine. Things have been busy. Although, I did have this weird moment last week where I woke up to find my house had been redecorated by someone.”

Raven was suddenly very busy dumping sugar packets into her latte. She hummed in concern. “Oh no, did they at least do a good job?”

 

The innocent tone did nothing to dissuade him. “You know, they really didn’t. Plastic sheeting isn’t a good look in a three-story. And you know the funniest part? Someone said they could have sworn they saw a blonde girl running down the street after it happened.” He fibbed.

 

A flash of guilt moved over her face before morphing into carefully constructed concern. The movement was flawless, almost imperceptible, and if Hank didn’t know her so well, he’d be certain she was completely innocent.

 

“So it was you, then.”

 

She set her cup down in the saucer with a clink. “Not just me. And I didn’t really have a choice. This is just Greek rivalry stuff.  You know these things aren’t personal.”

 

Hank did. He really, really did. But that didn’t mean that he liked it.

 

See, he had known Raven since he was fifteen years old, trying out one last semester of High School for an independent credit while he completed his first master’s degree. He was too small and too smart to really fit in with the built jocks and beautiful cheerleaders, so he spent most of those dreadful months hidden away in the library.

 

Somehow, the pretty blonde girl with the mismatched eyes had taken to him in a way nobody else ever had, bringing him to lunch with her, and inviting him to her house to talk science with her brother. She was what made the endless trippings, and pantsings, and teasings bearable.

The experience itself had been fairly horrible, but he’d gotten Raven out of the mess, so he was grateful nonetheless.

 

She was actually the reason he had applied to the Institute to begin with. Her brother had worked as a genetics professor there for years, so Hank was fairly familiar with the campus, and as a legacy, Raven got advanced acceptance, so he’d known he’d have at least one friend to stand by him.

 

And she had stuck by him, at least until she started rushing _the_ Sorority. Suddenly, all her time was filled up performing pledge tasks and attending meetings and fetching coffee. Despite his jealousy, he knew it was her dream to find a place where she belonged, so he wasn’t going to ask her to push that aside because he didn’t want to be alone.

 

She had seen his concern through his best attempts to hide it, and pushed him towards joining a greek letter society himself so he had other people to stand by him. But Hank had never been big on huge assemblies or essentially hero-worshipping the person in charge, so the idea of pledging one of the school fraternities seemed less and less appealing as time went on. And then, the worst happened. Just as Hank had made the decision to stop rushing, he connected with a Chapter neither of them would have expected--The Kappa’s biggest rivals.

Raven had sworn up and down that she wouldn’t let it affect their friendship if he pledged, but there was always a bit of a disconnect between them now. The feeling that he had to dance around certain topics, or worry about how she might react to something he said had become the third member of their friendship.

Of course, Hank hadn’t exactly been enthused by the prospect of joining a fraternity in the first place, but the housing cost went down by nearly five hundred dollars when you belonged to one of the houses, so he had finally given in and accepted their bid.

To say he had been less than thrilled by the idea of moving into a house filled with stinky, sweaty frat boys would be an understatement. Pushing through those misconceptions was one of the hardest things he had ever done.

 

Well, maybe they shouldn’t be called _misconceptions_. The boys were smelly and sweaty, but they were also smart and kind and generous. They had welcomed him with open arms. All except Alex.

Alex had hated him from the very beginning. At first it was just a few rude names here and there, but it escalated to pranks, and cruel jokes at every opportunity. Hank knew Scott had taken Alex aside to yell at him a few times, but it never seemed to help.

 

He felt lucky in knowing that whatever issues they had had seemed to have resolved themselves without intervention by now. But he would forever wonder what he had done to make the other boy hate him so much.

 

Raven had always insisted that Alex must actually like him, but that was ridiculous. Raven was always playing things up in her head. Especially since joining Kappa Kappa X. Not only did he see her less, but he also felt her changing, growing to like different things thanks to the influence of pretty girls in her life.

 

She had always had the looks to be a popular girl, but now she had the confidence too, and something about that made Hank uncomfortable.

 

He nodded his head at her, acknowledging her side of the argument. He still thought it was stupid that Greek life had to come between their friendship, but she seemed be okay with the growing distance between them, so he’d never pushed back too hard.

 

“I know, Raven. But I don’t like it. I just wonder if….” He trailed off, eyes drifting from his coffee to the group that had just entered the café. One of the boys was tall, sporting chunky glasses, while another was the other was average height, wearing ripped jeans and sneakers. But the boy Hank focused on was shorter and blonde, full lips stretched wide in a smile. He was pretty cute, actually. Hank cringed at that, trying to remind himself that he was sitting with his childhood crush.

He was chatting animatedly with one of the other boys, occasionally smacking their shoulders or knocking their arms together while he talked. It was impossible to miss that sort of casual intimacy they gave off.

 

Hank wondered if he had a class with the shorter boy, whose stance was so familiar. Chemistry, maybe. He hadn’t ever taken the time to look around at his lab-mates, so it was possible.

And then it clicked.

If Hank had been drinking, he would have spit it out all over Raven. The boy was Alex. _Alex Summers_ , skipping a chapter meeting to stand in a coffee shop with a bunch of people who looked like they might be his friends. Hank was flabbergasted.

Alex looked for all his efforts like someone you’d only want to have approach you if you had a very big knife on you, and yet here he was with people who clearly enjoyed his company. Hank felt like he’d missed the punchline to a spectacularly un-funny joke.

 

Raven looked at him like he was crazy.

 

“What are you doing, Hank? This is weird, even for you. Do you want to finish that sentence, or just stare off into the distance like a total nerd?”

Hank just pointed towards the counter in response. Raven heaved a heavy, put-upon sigh and tossed a glance over her shoulder.

 

“All I see is Alex with a bunch of his classmates.” She told him flatly. Her eyes were drifting towards her phone again, a sure sign she was losing interest in what he had to offer the conversation.

 

“Yes, that. Just, since when is Alex—” He didn’t know how to finish that sentence. It really wasn’t that strange to see Alex interacting with other people, Hank had just assumed he was always as hostile and aggressive towards them as he’d been towards Hank these past few years. And when the added mystery of the missed meeting were added in….Alex was becoming a real head-scratcher. “— _Pleasant_?”

 

Raven made a noise somewhere between a scoff and a snort. “Um, since always, I think. I’m pretty sure he’s kind of popular around here, you know. He’s had kind of an impressive football reputation since high school.” She said, as though this explained everything. Hank was pretty sure it didn’t. College boys and their interest in sports would always evade his understanding.

 

Hank shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. He’s so…..” Hostile and aggressive were the first two words that came to mind. “… _Grumpy_ all the time.” He finished with a grimace. That didn’t even begin to explain why he was feeling so confused about this. He huffed. “And it's not just that! He's missing a chapter meeting to be here. That's against the rules.”

Raven looked up from tearing her muffin into pieces. “You're missing a chapter meeting to be here. That isn't what this is about.” She deadpanned. “You seriously didn’t realize that Alex was capable of being a decent human being, did you? I thought he was being nicer to you now.” She said.

He looked up from the dregs of his coffee cup. “He is, I just—Well, I can’t believe he put me through so much shit just because he hated me. I sort of assumed he hated _people_. I can’t help but take that a little personally.”

He shifted a little under the scrutinous look she gave him.

“I explained that to you ages ago,” Raven started. She had her lecture face on. “It’s because he _likes_ you. Surely you noticed the looks he—”

Hank tossed out a hand to shush her. _“He’s walking over!”_ He stage-whispered at her. She rolled her eyes at him exasperatedly. Alex nodded as he approached their table, clearly suspecting nothing about Hank’s personal crisis over his personality. And why should he? It wasn’t like it was normal to have personal crisis over other people’s identities.

“Hey dude. Raven.” Alex said in greeting, one hand giving a casual wave. Hank envied the way he could make any action look casual. Hank somehow always looked overeager when he tried.

“H-Hi Alex. Hey. What are you doing here?” Thank god his voice hadn’t cracked. At least there was that.

“Uh, grabbing a bite to eat. This is the campus coffee shop, Hank. Pretty much everyone eats here a couple times a week.”

Hank bit his lip and tried to ignore Raven’s giggles. It wasn’t _that_ funny, come on.

“Your brother is the president,” Hank hissed at Alex, trying to convey his disapproval in a glance. “You can't skip meetings. There's probably a rule about it somewhere or something.”

Alex slowly shook his head. “Uh, nope. I don't think so. Besides, I'm not the only Delta breaking the code here.”

Hank didn't appreciate the conspiratorial look Alex gave him. They were so _NOT_ in this together.

“Right, yeah. Of course. Good point” Hank coughed. “You should enjoy go your food, then. We'll just stay out of each other's way. I won't tell if you won't?” He tried, waving a hand in the general direction of Alex’s food. “Have fun with your friends.”

“You seem really eager to get rid of me, Glasses. Scared I’ll report your date to Scott?”

Hank gaped at him. “ _Date_?” He spluttered. “This isn’t a _date_. She’s just a friend--god, _no_. She’s like my sister.” Hank looked to Raven to back him up, but she looked crestfallen. He suspected it was because she thought he was uninterested because of her looks.

He backtracked. “I mean, not that she isn’t really pretty and great and everything, but definitely not my type. I mean, she really is my type, I like short blondes, but I couldn’t see myself wanting to date her because she’s like my sister…” He trailed off, deciding it was best to stop talking.

Alex had his eyebrows raised, and Raven’s gaze was fixed firmly on the tabletop. Hank doubted he’d be getting any help from her any time soon.

“Right….Well, have fun on your, _whatever this is_ , then. I’ll see you back at the house, fellow rule-breaker.” Alex shot him one last quizzical glance before heading back towards his friends.

The table was silent for a moment, Hank trying to wrap his brain around what had just happened, and Raven fidgeting with the zipper on her jacket pocket. After a moment, she plastered on a smile that Hank could tell wasn’t one hundred percent sincere, and wagged an accusing finger at him.

 

“Alright, danger passed. You can open your eyes now and crawl out from under the table.” Raven teased him.

 

“I wasn’t that bad.” Hank protested, dignity on the line. Whatever weird moment she’d had back there had clearly passed.

 

Raven chortled. “You practically flinched when he looked at you. _You're the president's brother_ , get over yourself, Hank.”

 

Hank didn’t say anything. He was sure whatever else he said at this point would just dig him further into his hole, so he stayed silent.

 

Raven threw a hand up in the air and turned her attention back to her phone. He understood. He wouldn’t want to deal with his shit, either.

 

                                                                                                             

* * *

 

 

The rest of the day passed fairly uneventfully, though Hank didn’t miss how Raven had avoided truly admitting anything about her involvement with the prank. He was still determined to get it out of her.

 

That was easier said than done, though, since they didn’t share a single class, and lived on opposite sides of campus.

 

Having her avoid him did mean that he had extra time to work on finally finishing his dissertation, so there was an upside. If you could call working towards a chance to make a fool of yourself in front of your academic betters an upside.

 

Professor Logan didn’t care about his internal struggles, though.

 

He wanted complete attention while he demonstrated the proper way to fire up the kiln. He was currently leaning over Kitty and offering harsh words of wisdom that she was expected to repeat back to him to prove she was listening. And she was one of his favorites.

 

Hank would forever wonder why the man had been allowed to teach children anything, least of all art.

 

Piotr was sitting right at the front, already working on his project. From what Hank had gathered about the big man, he loved to do anything creative.

 

Thankfully, having someone in the class who actually enjoyed learning about art made it easier for Hank to fly under the radar. He just wasn’t artistically talented, sue him.

 

There he was, happily ignoring everyone around him when a sharp poke to the back shocked him out of his concentration. Another followed quickly, and then another. Frustration burbled up inside Hank.

 

“What do you want?” he hissed, whipping around to face his opponent. John Allerdyce, one of the most mean-tempered Alpha M’s, was sitting there, hands up in an innocent manner.

“Sorry, man, I was just wondering if you’d heard from anyone in your house recently.”

 

Hank regarded him suspiciously. John had no reason to be friendly now—had never been in the past—and was most certainly talking to him now for a reason. A self-serving reason.

 

“Why?” He asked distrustfully. Despite his best attempts, living in a frat house had made him more suspicious of those belonging to other fraternities.

 

John smirked. It wasn’t an attractive look on him. “Well, rumor has it Kappa is planning another big prank on you guys. ‘Sposed to go down in the next few days.”

“Why exactly should I believe you? Wouldn’t a war between Delta X and the Kappa’s help you guys? How do I know you aren’t actually trying to trick us into playing a prank on the Kappa’s to cause trouble?”

John rolled his eyes and said with absolute conviction: “Because we aren’t dumb enough to get involved in whatever shit-show you assholes have got yourselves messed up in. You’ll take each other down with or without our help. We might as well sit back and relax while you do all the work.”

“This is hardly sitting back and doing nothing,” Hank pointed out, quite reasonably, he felt.

John crossed his arms and fidgeted in his seat. “If you don’t want the info, you don’t have to take it.”

Hank shook his head, trying to sort through their conversation to find some piece of what John had said that was actually even slightly helpful. “I’m sorry, what part of this do you think was actual information I can use?”

John was silent, a sure sign he was either going to smash his easel over Hank’s head, or get up and leave. Surprisingly, he did neither. “They’re going to hit you where you least expect, where it really hurts. If you don’t stop it, someone's gonna get in serious trouble. Maybe more than one of you. This could affect people on our side, too, and we don’t do casualties, genius.”

Hank nodded slowly. He didn’t want to believe that John was trying to help him (that didn’t compute with any of the data he’d gathered about the man up to this point) but he couldn’t ignore the nagging sense that something big was going to happen soon.

“Can you give me anything else to go on?” He said, almost holding his breath as he waited for an answer. Was it pushing it to ask this of John?

“Check the bookshelves.” John waved a hand to dismiss the conversation, but Hank wasn’t done.

“Just how did you hear about this, anyway?”

John shrugged one shoulder, a lazy gesture that Hank hated with every fiber of his being. _Just move both arms, it isn’t that hard._

 

“I know people.”

 

Hank knew who he meant. It wasn’t exactly a secret that Pietro Maximoff, the leader of the Alpha M’s and self-proclaimed rival of his twin sister Wanda, President of the Kappa’s, liked to trade secrets around campus, much to the chagrin of anyone who’d ever crossed him. It made sense that he'd be poking his nose in here, if what Jubilee said about his grudge was true.

 

“Right. Well, thank you for letting me know.” He moved to turn around and gather up his things. There were only a few minutes left of class, he could stand to miss Professor Logan yelling at everyone to do their homework. He never forgot homework.

 

“Uh, you don’t have to mention that I said anything to you about this.” John called at the last moment. Hank paused, not turning around.

 

He hadn’t thought about mentioning John’s name in the conversation, really. It wasn’t like it mattered. But the way John was acting, maybe it did. He filed that bit of information away for future reference.

 

“Noted. I’ll do my best to keep from saying something if I ever speak to anyone who might care.” It sounded a little harsh, but Hank really didn’t run in the same circles as John. Who would he tell? John’s chair squeaked a little, a sure sign he was fidgeting again. Hank had noticed he did that a lot when he couldn’t flip his zippo lighter on and off.

“I mean it. Nobody’s gonna believe you if you say somethin’ anyway.”

Hank nodded and gave him a curt smile.

“Right, well, thanks again for telling me.” He hurried out of the classroom and back to the house.

 

                                                                                                                       

* * *

 

 

An unfortunate side effect of being on high alert from their prank war was that Hank noticed everything going on in their house. Sometimes it was a magazine dropped on the floor, and other days it was the fact that Bobby always moved the soap to the left side of the sink when he did dishes. Maybe it made him a little OCD, but he couldn’t stop himself from noting the changes.

So, true to the new normal their war had created, Hank immediately noticed that Alex was sitting in the living room. The sight surprised him, mainly because Alex was a very private guy, preferring to hole up in his room and only come out for meals.

Hank desperately wished that now were one of those times.

It was far too soon to be discussing what had happened at the café earlier. _Oh, hey Alex. Sorry I wasn’t more eloquent at the shop earlier, I was just a little shocked to see that maybe other people actually find you pleasant to be around. Let’s try to get past this, shall we?_ That would go over well. He decided to just leave it be, and see if Alex brought it up. Hopefully he wouldn’t even remember seeing Hank. People like Alex were popular enough to run into tons of people each day, why would he remember one awkward conversation over breakfast?

 

He closed the door quietly, wondering if he could get upstairs before Alex realized he was home.

No such luck. The boy had the ears of a cat, looking over the second Hank pushed the door into the frame. A grin settled over his face as he set down the book he was reading. It was a nice look for him, gentler than the smirk he usually wore.

 

It made Hank simultaneously hot and cold inside.

 

“I didn’t think you’d be back for another hour. How’d class go?”

 

Hank hesitated. On the one hand, the last person he wanted to talk about his day to was Alex. But on the other hand, Alex was actually here, asking. The fact that he’d noticed Hank’s schedule was a nice touch, though it made Hank a little suspicious that maybe Alex had been waiting for him to get home. But he couldn’t come up with a good enough reason for that to be the case, so he simply gave in and moved to the couch next to Alex.

 

“I actually had a kind of weird day.” He decided to brush over the awkward encounter in the coffee shop. “John Allerdyce talked to me during Application of Art today.”

 

Alex looked amused. “Glad to hear you’re making some friends, bozo.”

 

Hank pulled his knees up to his chest and huffed. “Not like that. And I’m perfectly capable of approaching people for conversation if I feel like it, I just don’t usually crave intellectual stimulation from people like him.”

 

“Mhh, sure you are. You’ve been such a peach talking to me over the years, after all.”

Hank shot him a glare.

“Sorry, jeez. I was just saying. So, what sort of conversation was it, then?”

Hank pondered a moment how to best explain it. He had a feeling that John was telling the truth, not based on any real evidence, just gut feeling. “Kind of like a warning. He told me Kappa was planning another prank. Something really bad. He said something about it…hitting the person we’d least expect or something. He was really cryptic about it.”

Alex frowned. He knew more than most of the boys in the house did about the rivalry between the two chapters, because he’d heard stories from Scott for years before enrolling himself.

“When?” He asked, voice too neutral to be real. He was obviously getting close to dangerous levels of interest in this, the same way Scott was. Hank shook his head. “I wish I knew. Sometime in the next few days.”

Alex nodded absently, mind already moving onto a plan. It scared Hank how quickly he could switch modes like that. He remembered what John had said about keeping his name out of things, and tugged at Alex’s sleeve to bring him back to the present.

 

“When we tell the rest of the house, can we keep John’s name out of the discussion? He was really adamant about it.”

 

A dark look flashed across Alex’s face. “Probably because he had something to do with it. He _is_ an Alpha M, Hank.”

 

Hank brushed that off. Alex was still a typical frat boy after all, he had the same outdated prejudices everyone else had. Hank suspected that his own issues might have stemmed partially from Alex’s obvious dislike of the other chapters.

 

“Can you do that?” he prompted.

 

Alex sighed. It was obvious that he was reluctant to agree. “Sure, fine, whatever.”

 

Hank’s internal monologue cheered. He had won this one. Hank 1, Alex 0. Well, Alex had racked up quite a few more points from other competitions held in Hank’s head, but he didn’t need to know that.

 

“Great.” He stood up and headed for the stairs, but Alex’s voice stopped him on the bottom step.

“Oh, and Hank? Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone that your date with Raven was what kept you so busy you couldn't show up to the meeting today. You know how the old saying goes; _ho’s before bro’s_.”

 

Hank turned around, too startled to respond. Alex was smirking as he opened his book back up, a sure sign he knew exactly what he’d done to Hank’s rapidly flushing skin.

 

Alex didn’t say anything else, and Hank wasn’t about to push him to. He stomped up the stairs, his decent mood spoiled.

 

                                                                                                               

* * *

 

 

“They _what_? Didn’t we prove that we weren’t going to stand for this type of nonsense when we pranked them back last week?” Scott ranted, pacing the length of the living room. Hank had an urge to stand in front of him to see if he would keep going.

 

“Scott, calm down, man.” Armando waved a hand in front of Scott’s mad pacing, trying to catch his attention. “It doesn’t matter, we can just put up preventative measures, okay?”

 

Scott stopped to look at them, eyes wide and unblinking. Hank hated the manic side of him.

“Okay, yeah. We can do that. We can work with this.”

 

From the corner of his eye, Hank saw Alex roll his eyes dramatically. For all his bravado, he’d actually done nothing to help break the news to Scott, abandoning Hank to lean against the wall casually.

 

Hank suspected it was because he was as scared of Scott as everyone else was.

 

Alex caught his eye and winked as though he were privy to Hanks’ internal monologue. Hank looked away, flustered.

 

“We can assign watch to make sure nobody pulls anything.” Scott was saying behind them. “I’ll station Bobby and Jean Paul on the front lawn, Roberto and Sam can take the back. Kurt and Josh will sleep in the living room to make sure no one tries to come in. We can rotate each night.”

 

Hank nodded noncommittally. He felt like he’d done his duty bringing the situation to Scott’s attention. He really didn’t want any more to do with the plan. And since he was clearly the only one whose college education wasn’t being bought by a sport scholarship, he actually had to work hard and attend class. He didn’t have time for this kind of thing.

“Great. That’s settled. Can I go play Overwatch now?” Alex interjected, breaking through Hank’s internal monologue. He sounded extremely bored. Scott waved him off, and Hank took that as an opening to leave as well.

 

                                                                                                              

* * *

 

 

**NOVEMBER.**

The conclusion that Hank came to as he woke up at four AM the Monday following his conversation with John was that he’d forgotten to tell the other boys something important. Some piece of the story that he had missed.

He wasn’t certain it would matter much, or even do _anything_ in the long run, but it was impossible to shake the concern that it would be his fault if something bad happened. The plastic food in the house was bad enough (the cost of groceries to replace all that had been taken was over three hundred dollars), and the Halloween prank the Kappa’s had pulled had been completely demoralizing for many of the members. Stealing all their appropriately themed decorations and replacing them with Valentine’s decorations had been surprisingly effective at ruining the holiday spirit. Letting things escalate seemed dangerous.

After all they’d been through, he needed to do something. No matter what, he’d never been one to sit idly by and watch a bully make their rounds—of course, he’d also never been the one to stop the bully either. Realistically, in whatever scenario he could come up with, Hank was probably the one being bullied. But he wasn't going to sit by now.

In the end, none of that mattered, because the Kappa’s were back before the night was out.

 

                                                                                                                 

* * *

 

 

Hank was on his way to take a shower when Bobby approached him. His head was bowed, and his eyes were red like he’d been rubbing at them.

“Hi, Hank.”

“Hi Bobby. Everything okay?”

Bobby shook his head.

“Could you be a little more specific than that, please?”

Bobby scratched the back of his neck. “I just got off the phone with my advisor. She says if I don’t get a B in all my classes this term, I might lose my scholarship.”

It was a little awkward, hearing this from someone Hank hadn’t ever shared anything personal with. But Bobby clearly had some stuff he needed to get off his chest, and Hank was more than happy to let him vent. It would have been better if he’d come by an hour earlier, but whatever. Hank wasn’t picky. He waited for Bobby to continue.

“So um, I was kinda hoping that maybe you’d help me study for the next test? I really can’t fail this class, and I know you’re tutoring Sam and Josh, so I thought…” He trailed off, hopeful eyes peering up at Hank. And really, what could Hank say other than _yes_?

“Yeah, of course I can, Bobby.” He mentally flipped through his calendar, trying to fit Bobby in between his own coursework, his advisory meeting with Charles, and lunch with Raven. “Do you want to meet up around three tomorrow to go over your syllabus?”

The blonde boy brightened, a goofy grin lighting up his face. “Really? Thank you so much! I can’t thank you enough. I’ll see you at three tomorrow. Thank you.” Bobby looked so grateful it almost hurt to look at him. But it was nice being appreciated around the house for once.

Hank was still smiling when he climbed into the shower, mind already hard at work on a study guide. So it was no big surprise that he missed the first signs that something was wrong.

With a quiet, off-key hum, Hank cranked the handle to the shower hard to the left, and waited for the heavy feeling of water to begin its thrum against his head.

What he got instead was a cool sludge of liquid pouring down over him. It was a complete shock to his system, the thick substance crashing down over his head, and he opened his mouth the gasp. The liquid tasted vaguely like chocolate.

From somewhere downstairs, he heard a shout of: “What the _FUCK_?!” that told him he wasn’t the only one who’d discovered the problem with their pipes.

Still gasping, Hank smacked at the shower handle viciously until it turned off. This was seriously starting to bother him.

Wrapped only in a towel, Hank took the stairs two at a time to the kitchen, to find Warren with his hands and face covered in (what Hank believed to be) chocolate milk.

“What the fuck?” Warren repeated.

“I think our pipes are filled with chocolate milk.” Hank told him. His voice sounded weird and distant. He was so angry he was almost shaking.

“That’ll teach you to keep drinking from the faucet,” Sean said mildly, not looking up from picking the crusts off of his sandwich.

They both ignored him.

“I’m going to take a shower at the gym.” Hank bit out. He was tired of his life being messed with, of feeling afraid in his own house. Although he’d gotten used to school being a place of terror when he was in High School, he’d always associated home with safety.

He hated the lot of them for taking that security away from him.

All in all, it wasn’t one of the Kappa's best pranks, but it was enough to send Hank—who was already pretty angry—over the edge into fury.

 

                                                                                                             

* * *

 

 

Thankfully,  Raven was about as done with the pranks as the rest of them were. She had never been one to think cruelty was fun, and her patience was reaching its limit.

“I’ve already told the house I’m out. Anything else that happens is on them. I don’t want anything to do with this stupid game anymore.” She sounded so sincere that Hank wanted to believe her, but he’d seen her get swayed to do far more for far less, so he wasn’t trusting it to last.

Above all else, she just wanted to fit in, no matter what that took. Hank could relate, and he couldn’t. It had always been different for him. Being a teenage genius was no walk in the park, so it was harder to find people worthy of his time. Which sounded bad, even in his head, but it was true. Most people simply weren’t on his level.

“Okay. But that doesn’t mean anything will change. You know that. They don’t need you to run the operation.”

A flash of hurt shot across her face, carefully morphing into something akin to mild boredom. _Shit_. _He hadn’t meant it like that_. “I-I mean, _obviously_ you make their ranks more fashionable, but you know you aren’t the mastermind behind the plans. They’ll keep going with or without you.”

Her lips tightened a fraction, her heterochromatic eye a dark brown with anger. But she wouldn’t say anything to him. She never did. She cared about his opinion of her too much to do that.

“Right. How silly of me.” The words came off flat and dull, not joking like she’d wanted. She dropped the façade. “I don’t know why I even bothered to come here, then. Might as well just let you figure out how to deal with this on your own. It’ll probably happen faster without me slowing you down.”

She stood quickly and shouldered her purse, movements jerky with suppressed rage. “Enjoy your coffee. I have a job interview to go to, not that you cared to ask about that.” And with that she was stalking out of the shop and into the frigid afternoon air. Hank silently wished one of the bullies from high school were here to make him feel on the outside like he did on the inside.

 

                                                                                                                

* * *

 

**DECEMBER.**

 

After that, the pranks took a break. They were nearing Christmastime, and the campus was so bright and cheery that no one was in the mood to secretly plot anything. Hank was grateful. Having taken his finals a week early, he had the next few weeks off classes, which left him with a completely open schedule to do anything he wanted.

Currently, he wanted to get caught up on reading the science journals he’d let pile up while finals were sucking the very life out of him. He had also managed to write an entire three sentences more of his dissertation (hardly a feat, considering he’d also trimmed off one hundred and fifty words of content during the last read-through).

The rest of the house had very different ideas of how they should be spending their Friday nights.

Usually Hank could accept their differences and move on, but this felt like a betrayal of sorts. Despite the fact that every single one of them had finals coming up within the next five days, as soon as the weekend hit they all jumped back into the party scene like nothing was happening. Like Hank hadn’t spent the last month working with several of the members to help them improve their grades and stay in school.

Right now it was Friday night and the party had already been pounding on for a good two hours. Hank had a headache, and wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with a good book and finally have some peace and quiet.

However, that wasn’t an option. Mainly because someone else was already occupying his bed. More accurately, two someone’s interlocked so tightly around each other that Hank couldn’t tell where the one ended and the other began were already in his bed.

He gave a cough, hoping to startle them apart so he could ask them to leave—politely, of course, he wasn’t a _total_ party grouch—but they didn’t even blink. At least, he didn’t think so. He wasn’t sure he would have been able to tell if they had.

“Guys, come on…” He sighed as what had been mild groping started to look more like something he’d need to buy a new mattress after. “Classy. Really classy.” From the tangle of dark curls on the boy’s head, Hank would have guessed it was Roberto.

No big surprise there. Roberto had always been really popular with the girls on campus. Something about his easy smile and casual charm. Hank had tuned out about the time Raven started waxing poetic about his “dreamy” eyes.

There was clearly nothing to be done about Roberto and his conquest outside of hiring a forklift to remove them from his bed, so Hank trudged back down the stairs to join the party.

The first thing he saw in the living room was Bobby doing a kegstand. Frustration coursed through him at the sight of the lanky boy balanced on top of the keg. Bobby had been doing so good cutting back on the party behavior that Hank had almost started to think he was going to make it through the next term without any unfortunate trips to the hospital, or accidental hookups. Looks like that plan was shot.

Hank searched around for someone to commiserate with him about the wild antics of party boys, gaze finally settling on Armando. He was always rational and calm regardless of the circumstance. A kindred spirit of sorts; a fellow academic in a room filled with slovenly frat bros.

Armando was laughing a wide smile while he talked to a girl Hank didn’t recognize, but that wasn’t what Hank was focused on. He zeroed in on the can of beer in Armando’s hand, disappointment welling up inside him. Clearly Armando wasn’t taking this seriously, either.

Hank fixed him with the full force of his _disappointed Hank McCoy_ face. Which, granted, wasn’t really that impressive to begin with. Armando didn’t look bothered.

“Somebody give you too much pineapple in your Pina Colada or something?” He asked with a wide grin, seeming far too relaxed for someone currently throwing his future away.

Hank seethed. “I’m not drinking tonight. And I thought you guys wouldn’t be, either. You _do_ have finals on Monday, you know.”

Armando nodded, still looking friendly as ever. “I know. It’s marked on my calendar. You don’t have to worry about me, man, I’ve got my shit together.”

Clearly he didn’t, Hank thought, or he wouldn’t have felt the need to start binge-drinking the second the pressure was on.

“Right, well. It’s not you I’m worried about.” A total lie. “It’s the other boys. Bobby just downed half a keg in thirty minutes, Warren’s passed out in the bathtub upstairs, and last I saw Roberto he was making some really questionable decisions with a Theta Beta Pi.” His tone felt a little too tattle-tale-y even for his liking, but there was no going back now.

Armando’s eyebrows shot up, but otherwise he looked totally calm. “And this is your concern how? They’re all adults. They can make their own decisions. Let them enjoy the party, dude, come on.”

Hank’s frown deepened. “There shouldn’t even _be_ a party. That’s my _point_. It’s like they can’t even behave themselves for a couple of hours without me breathing down their necks to keep them in line.”

“You’re not giving them enough credit. They’ve barely even attended a party since September. I don’t blame them for needing a chance to let off some steam after the stress of prepping for finals. And besides, I just saw Alex a couple minutes ago, and he said he was going to cut everyone off after their sixth drink.”

Hank wanted to scoff. “ _Alex_ is supposed to be the responsible one here? In charge of distributing liquor and keeping the house in line? Great! We’re all fucked, then. Is he even allowed near alcohol? He _is_ on probation, you know. I’m pretty sure it’s a crime to let him handle large amounts of beer without supervision!”

The muscle in Armando’s jaw had started working, clenching in time with the way Hank _knew_ he was grinding his teeth. Armando was not a person you wanted to piss off. “Did he tell you that? Never mind. You shouldn’t be telling me that. You shouldn’t be telling _anyone_ that. This is his business and not yours, and you’d better get that through your head before you go around spreading any other secrets you know about us. Just because someone tells you something does not mean you have permission to spill the information to the world. Sometimes people tell you something just because they trust you.”

He paused to take a drink from his beer can, eyes still filled with fire that Hank was afraid to feel licking against his skin. “So instead of harping on everyone about finals and grades and stupid mistakes from their past, maybe you could check your privilege and let them enjoy themselves for once. Doing something that makes them happy.”

Armando turned back to the girl he’d been talking to, who was very obviously listening into their conversation. She settled down on his lap with a flirty giggle, and stared blatantly at Hank. Hank shot her a glare, but she just smiled.

It would have been easy to turn away from this and fall back into the crowd, absorbed by the pulsing rhythm and moving bodies, but something in Hank told him to stay right where he was. He’d never been the type to approach a confrontation, but he hated letting someone else get the last word.

He ducked his head and chuckled wryly, shoulders moving up and down in a shrug that was more forced ease than actual mirth. “Right. Why shouldn’t they enjoy themselves tonight? After all, they probably won’t be at the school much longer after they flunk all their finals. But why bother actually reminding them of that. I guess when it comes down to it, the priority of frat boys will always be a good rager.”

Armando looked so furious he actually stood right up without any warning, knocking the girl onto the floor. He didn’t seem to notice.  “ _That’s_ what you think? Bullshit. Those boys _deserve_ a break. They worked really hard this year, and you don’t get to tell them how to live their lives just because their idea of fun pisses you off. Sean comes from a huge family, you know that? He was so busy helping his parents raise his siblings that he failed high school the first time around. Did you know that Bobby was kicked out of his house when he was sixteen, and just _barely_ scraped enough money together to apply here? Or that Warren’s dad sent him here as a last resort, telling him if he couldn’t make it here he couldn’t make it anywhere. But Warren’s maintained a 4.0 this entire year, and that wasn’t just because you taught him how to color code his calendar.” Armando was seething, clearly furious at Hank. It was more than a little scary. Armando was rarely ever angry. In fact, his nickname on the football team was Darwin, because he adapted to _everything_ that was thrown at him.

He’d started pacing now, and Hank was grateful. It was worse to be fixed with the force of Armando’s anger than paced at. “In fact, I’ll bet you never asked a single one of them what they were studying here. No, tell me. What’s Kurt studying? Jean-Paul? Scott, even? You don’t know them, Hank. You live with them, and you talk to them, but you don’t know them. I’ll bet you think we all got in here on sports scholarships, huh? Or that our rich parents bought us a ticket in. You don’t know anything. They aren’t your brothers. We aren’t your family.”

Hank felt little, smaller than he ever had. He wanted to open his mouth and have the perfect, undefeatable argument pour out, but there was nothing for him to say. He couldn’t argue with this because Armando was right.

He didn’t know them, and he’d never cared to try learning. They were little more than flesh-covered stereotypes built up in his head like he knew them. But he only knew what he’d cared to learn. He clenched his fists, fingernails digging into his palms in an effort to center himself.

Where did Hank get off trying to control people he didn’t know a thing about? A hot wash of shame coursed through him. “You’re right.” He choked. The implied _and I’m wrong_ was just about the hardest thing he’d come to realize this entire conversation. He stumbled over his words. “I--I know I’ve been wrong about a lot of things, but…” he wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence.

“No. No, you _don’t_ know. You’re too busy thinking you’re better than everyone, judging us all to realize that these are some good people. My people. And you don’t appreciate that.”

Armando had turned and left without another word, without any instruction on what to do next. He left Hank floundering for words, floundering for a foothold. What was he supposed to do now? Give a blanket apology to the whole house? Quit the Frat? _What did Armando want from him?_ The shame in his gut had turned acid, burning its way through his stomach angrily. These men had taken a chance on him, and managed to see him as something other than an awkward, socially confused nerd with too many diplomas. Why hadn’t he been able to do the same for them?

The rush of the party quickly became too much to handle, the noise in the house mingling with the noise inside his head, making his brain feel like a war zone. He had to get of here, had to find someplace else to be until he could figure out what he was supposed to do here.

So he retreated to the place he always turned to when the real world got too difficult to face: Xavier’s mansion.

 

                                                                                                          

* * *

 

 

Charles was more than happy to welcome him back to the house, face travelling from concerned to understanding to sympathetic in the time it took Hank to recount what had happened.

“Those boys are sweet, but they’re hardly on your level.” Charles told him, before grimacing and backtracking hastily. “I mean that in the nicest of ways. I truly do care about each and every one of them. What I mean is, you speak from your brain, and they speak from their hearts. You need to find a way to communicate that reaches a middle ground, so you all have some understanding. Some perspective.”

Hank nodded thoughtfully, hands fiddling with the handle of the huge tea mug Charles had thrust upon him when he walked in. “I know that logically, but I can’t help feeling that they won’t want to. That I’ve messed up too badly to win them back. I’ve been so unfair towards them, Charles.” He whispered morosely.

“Well that’s the test of true friendship, isn’t it? Recognizing your mistakes and apologizing for them, and if your friends accept it, that allows you to grow with their help, and if they don’t, you get to grow for the next person.” Charles looked far too cheery to be having this conversation, with his blue knit sweater and unruly hair, but Hank felt grateful anyway. There wasn’t much in this world that Charles Xavier couldn’t make feel easier with a mug of tea and a pep-talk.

“Thanks Charles.” Hank couldn’t help wondering if some of what Charles was saying might have helped him and Erik after…. _whatever_ had happened between them, but he wasn’t in a position to ask that.  “Can I ask you a question?”

Charles nodded.

“Do you think I’m condescending?” Hank fiddled with the hem of his shirt, almost not wanting to hear the answer. Charles fixed him with a pitying look.

“I think you can be very stubborn in your opinions. And sometimes you ignore information that might change those opinions because you want to be right. And you like having the answers to problems. Additional information means you didn’t have everything you needed to solve the problem, and that frustrates you. I’m not saying this to be mean, Hank, please understand that. I just want to give you some perspective after your tough night.”

Charles tapped his fingers against his china mug, deep in thought. Hank felt it best not to interrupt. “I think it makes you difficult to get close to, because you can’t accept new ideas about who a person might be. You’ve stuck so loyally with Raven even through the past few years of her being…less than model in her behaviors. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing,” Charles hastily added. “Just that she’s not treated you as well as she could have, and you haven’t even seemed to recognize that.”

Hank frowned at the floor. Raven had been pulling away these past few years, distant and almost unrecognizable to him. And yet he still searched for the old Raven, the one who’d faced down jocks for him, and sat next to him while he’d visited the nurse's office after another swirly or pantsing. Was that enough to redeem him for the way he’d treated the Delta X boys?

Charles answered that question for him. “I’m not saying that’s a good thing, Hank. I’m reminding you that people grow and change, not always positively, but you have to give them room to make those changes. To become who they’re meant to be. They can’t always live inside your head as some stereotyped image of who they are, or as an idealized version of themselves.” He looked so sad for a moment that Hank considered ending the conversation there. But Charles was strong, Hank didn’t need to treat him like a child.

“So I should just give up and stop trying? People are never going to be what I want them to be, so why bother?” He said, arms crossing firmly across his chest in a defensive position.

Charles shook his head. “You don’t need to do that. You can work on changing the way you perceive others instead. That’s a far more productive way to handle things. Sometimes you have to come to terms with the fact that what you expect from people may be more than they can give you. Be understanding of your friends and their limitations, Hank.”

But that didn’t sound like the answer to Hank. He’d gotten by just fine the way he dealt with thing up until now, and there was no reason to go making rash decisions after hearing one person’s opinion. He hummed a little in acknowledgement, not looking at Charles.

“Hank, please. I’m not trying to hurt your feelings.” Charles said, his expression apologetic. “But I want you to know that a relationship is give and take. There has to be some compromise.”

“I know. It’s fine. I get it. I have to change. I should probably do that at home.” But he couldn’t bring himself to get up and leave, to trudge back to that house and face the disappointment of all fifteen of his housemates. He turned to Charles, a look of fierce determination plastered on. “Charles, could I maybe—”

But Charles had started speaking at the same time. “Wonderful. That way you can go and apo—” They both stopped, and Charles chuckled. “Go on, Hank.”

“Would it be possible for me to stay here tonight? Just so I don’t have to head back to campus so late.”

Charles smiled his understanding smile, something Hank hated even more than his smug smile. “Of course you can. I was just about to suggest that myself.”

Hank suspected he hadn’t been, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Thanks, Charles. You’re a real life-saver.”

Hanks usual room was still made up from his last stay there, complete with a set of pajama pants forgotten at the bottom of the wooden dresser, and he was in bed quickly, eager to avoid any more looks from Charles. So what if he had a tendency to avoid difficult conversations? It wasn’t like that was affecting his personal life or anything.

But the buzzing from his phone was impossible to ignore as the minutes ticked by, and eventually he gave in and thumbed the device open. Alex had messaged him thirteen times in the past two hours, quite the feat considering it came from someone who Hank was ninety-five percent certain didn’t even know what a cell-phone was a year ago.

He caught himself, that condescending tone slipping back even when he was alone with his thoughts. He really did have a problem with judging people. He clicked the chat box open and skimmed the messages, stopping at the ones that seemed the most important.

**Message from: Alex Summers. 2:00am.**

_So you might wanna come home soon. A couple of the guys thought it would be funny to steal your stuff_

 

**Message from: Alex Summers. 2:17pm**

_Warren said it wasn’t just fun and games, he’s seriously pissed at yu?? Did you confiscate his vodka again?_

 

**Message from: Alex Summers. 3:00am**

_Kinda starting to worry that one of them killed you and tossed your body…..u ok?_

 

**Message from: Alex Summers. 3:47am**

_Okay so. Darwin filled me in. that was really shitty of you. I’m pretty sure you aren’t coming home tonight, and good. Don’t. They need time to cool down without you around trying to make excuses._

 

**Message from: Alex Summers. 3:50am**

_Rescued your chemistry set though asshole_

 

Hank rested his forehead against the cool glass of the bay window, regret for every interaction he’d had tonight coursing through him. It was strange how it seemed to come in waves, seeming not so bad one moment, and then so bad he wanted to cry the next. He resolved to apologize in the morning.

 

                                                                                                                

* * *

 

 

As it so happened, he didn’t apologize the next day. In fact, he didn’t apologize the day after that, or the day after that, or the day after that. In the end, nearly two weeks went by, and he hadn’t been back to the house once. Raven told him he was using unhealthy coping mechanisms when she stopped by argue about the theme of the party with Charles (she wanted white tie gathering and he wanted a cheesy Christmas sweater theme. Hank wasn’t really sure who’d won, but they seemed to have reached a fairly peaceful resolution), but he wasn’t fond of listening to her opinion these days. It all seemed to be overly critical.

Hank suspected that she was still mad at him because of his comments when they’d met for coffee last, but he wasn’t sure how to approach the conversation. Every time he so much as looked at her, she shot him a glare cold enough to freeze a bonfire.

“You won’t make it far in life if you keep ignoring the important things.” She told him that afternoon, arms folded crossly over her chest. Hank felt a little like she was directing that at their relationship, but he wasn’t sure how to answer that.

She was the one who had ignored and abandoned him these past two years, after all.

“I am focusing on the important things: the Christmas ball.” He responded, jaw clenched in preparation for her rebuttal.

She snorted. “Right, like you’ve ever cared about that stupid thing before. I’ve seen you roll your eyes over the years both before and during the party. You’d rather be home doing some crossword puzzle than interacting with actual people who might care about you.”

She wasn’t wrong. Hank did have a fondness for the crossword that came in the Sunday post.

But that was hardly an invitation to call him out about his lack of party etiquette. He just wasn’t fond of trying to shmooze up to Charles’s rich, socialite friends.

“Be realistic, Raven. Who at any of those parties has ever cared about me?” He said it with a self-deprecating chuckle and a shake of his head, trying to be funny in his own way. But her face twisted up like she’d bit into a lemon, and Hank just _knew_ this was going to be a repeat of The Coffee Shop Incident.

She stared at him pointedly for a long while, that disappointed look in her eyes that Hank couldn’t stand to know he’d put there. “I’m tired of watching you feel sorry for yourself. Everything that happens in your life is so much worse than what happens to everyone else, and I don’t want to be a part of that negativity. Call me when you’re ready to admit what an ass you’ve been to everyone.”

Hank could tell she was going to get up and leave, and he didn’t want to be the second person to drive her from the Xavier home in her life, so he reached out and grabbed her wrist. His fingers looped loosely around her bony wrist, easy enough to pull free from if she wanted to, but she gave in to his attempts to stop her.

“What, Hank? What can you possibly say here that I want to hear?”

Hank sighed. “I love you, Raven. I always have. I want you to be in my life. I’m sorry if you think I’ve—”

She tossed up a hand to stop him. “Don’t. I don’t want to hear you try to explain away your actions. You either recognize that you did something to hurt me, and you apologize, or you don’t care. End of story.”

Hank floundered, hand still linked with her flushed skin. “I do care, I just don’t know what I did to upset you. Maybe if you could explain….”

“I’ve been _trying_. But you’re never there for me when I need you anymore. And when you are it’s just to talk about your stupid problems. We’ve met for coffee how many times this term, and you still haven’t asked me how my classes were going! Or whether or not I got that job at the admissions department. Which I did, by the way. But you have insulted me several times, which was really fun. I’m not sure you really care about anyone other than yourself.” She looked like she wanted to say more, which Hank desperately wished she wouldn’t. Nobody seemed to be on his side anymore.

And then she struck for the last time, placing the final nail to seal the coffin he’d built for himself. “You’re just like Charles.”  He found himself slightly offended, a betrayed feeling rippling through him. He’d never considered mirroring Charles to be a bad thing until right now, and in this moment, he felt robbed of both his idol and his best friend.

She tugged out of his grasp. His fingers immediately felt cold from the loss of her warm hand.

“Goodbye, Hank.” She said, blonde hair spilling over her shoulder like a curtain. Hank had never found her more beautiful, or more desperately, achingly sad.

After that, things got dark. Without classes to occupy his mind, or friends to insist he do things with them, Hank’s days and nights were remarkably uneventful. He stayed in his guest room at Xavier’s, running Armando’s words, and Raven’s disappointed look, and even Alex’s text— _don’t come home_ —through his mind on a loop.

He suspected that if he were a bigger movie buff he might have watched some of those sad teen movies people swore by, like Pretty in Pink, or The Breakfast Club or something.

But as it were, he mostly played words with friends on his phone (which was difficult considering all of his real-life friends were currently pissed off at him).

Charles attempted to get him back into the party planning mood, asking him for opinions on tablecloth color and cut, decorating scheme, and food preferences, but none of it helped much. He just wasn’t in a party planning mood. It didn’t help that his fashion sense was always a little off in the best of times.

Luckily his room at Xavier’s didn’t hinge on his ability to contribute to the party he’d promised to help plan, and he was able to skate by under the radar for as long as possible, holing up in his room all day and sneaking down to the kitchen to grab snacks long after everyone else was in bed.

He knew he couldn’t avoid the real world forever, though, and it was with growing dread in the pit of his stomach that he watched the party approach.

 

                                                                                                            

* * *

 

 

With Hallmark playing Christmas movies, and all of the radio stations blaring holiday themed tunes, Hank felt sorely left out of the festivities, a lone scrooge in a sea of candy canes.

Campus had gotten brighter and cheerier, it seemed, over the past few weeks, and Hank hated it. He hated the bright, beautiful garland wrapped around the light posts, and the red and green lights strung up throughout the trees. He even hated the fun Christmas mugs the coffee shops had started using.

Somehow over these past few years, he’d become dependent on his housemates for social interaction, and without them he felt lost. Hank McCoy. The little nerd who hadn’t made a friend until fifth grade was _lonely_.

He thought back to something his mother had once told him, arms crossed and face stern. _‘You don’t get to choose who wants to stay in your life; only who deserves to be allowed in.’_

That, he thought, was the worst piece of advice she’d ever given him.

Nothing had been more misleading to ten-year-old Hank than the belief that maybe he’d have enough friends to choose who to keep and who to let go in the future. That certainly hadn’t happened yet, and he was definitely not ten years old anymore.

The truth was, he decided, that you could choose who you wanted to be friends with, but not whether they stayed or left.

Nothing had ever felt more depressing than that fact.

But his fears all came to a head when he woke up on the 24th in a sweat, alarm blaring the note: “Christmas party today!!!!!”

Hank sighed and readied himself for a very long day.

Because Hank hadn’t played an active role in the planning, Charles and Raven had made several executive decisions that Hank probably would have vetoed simply out of common sense.

“Like what?” Charles exclaimed indignantly when Hank approached the subject.

“Well, like the thirty-foot tree in the living room, for starters. How did you even get that thing decorated?” Hank said, feeling more and more over his head living here. He always forgot how eccentric the Xavier’s got about the holidays until he was living in the madness again.

“There’s a company that does it for you.” Charles crossed his arms and refused to meet Hank’s eye. “But that doesn’t matter, what matters is that we’ve got a tree. That’s the most important part of Christmas.”

Hank knew for a fact that Charles considered whatever part of Christmas he was currently focused on to be the most important part, and that he was likely to change his mind about that within the next two hours, so he let it drop.

“Okay, but even so. We are going to fit about half the students and faculty in here in a couple hours, are you sure there’s enough room?” Ever the pragmatist to Charles idealist, Hank leveled him with a fierce look. He needed to take this seriously.

“Er, make that all the students.” Charles whispered into his poppy seed bagel.

“Excuse me?” Hank said. He couldn’t possibly have heard right. This house was huge—they didn’t call it _the mansion_ for nothing—but the entire student body of New York State College was over five thousand people.

“Well, Raven and I agreed—” Never a good sign, Hank thought. “—That we should go for open invitations this year. To branch out and get to know some new people. You aren’t mad, are you?” Charles sounded truly concerned, and since it was his party, Hank couldn’t bring himself to say yes.

“Of course not. Just….don’t be too upset if everyone doesn’t _fit_ in here. Okay?” And please don’t expect everyone to show up. God, he _hoped_ everyone didn’t show up.

“I don’t expect them _all_ to show up. I just thought we should all broaden our horizons a little.” Going off of the look he fixed Hank, that was a direct judgement of his social life.

Hank grit his teeth. “I’m gonna go check on the coffee.”

He didn’t come back until the party started.

 

                                                                                                             

* * *

 

 

By the time guests had started to arrive, the novelty of having tinsel draped across the banisters and mistletoe in every doorway had worn off. Hours ago. Sixty minutes in and Hank was suffering from too much boring small-talk with Charles’s socialite friends.

Sebastian Shaw was a total schmooze, mouth opening wide with faked laughter and eyes glittering with a ferocity that frightened Hank. He wasn’t used to predatory men, and Shaw was that and more.

“I’m just saying, the less tail the old homo gets, the more for the rest of us, am I right?” Shaw’s companions tittered their obligatory laughs, expressions a blank slate of liqueur induced emptiness. Hank despised the lot of them. Hank himself was in less than top-form after at least three glasses of spiked eggnog, but he hardly found himself charmed by the man. Weak minds were easy to sway, he concluded, and downed another drink.

“Come on, Sebastian. Regardless of his preferences in the bedroom, you have to admit that he’s done wonders for the academic community. I heard that New York State is well on its way to becoming accepted by Ivy standards.” The man to Shaw’s right cut in, slicked back hair and strong nose giving him the look of a Greek statue. Hank jolted as the name of his school dropped from the man’s lips, finally tuning back into the conversation.

“I’m sorry, are you talking about Professor Xavier?” Hank said, fingers clutching his now-empty glass as he prepared for the answer. He didn’t want to start a fight tonight, and he knew Charles wouldn’t appreciate it. Some things were worth doing despite the risks. He might have been making a lot of mistakes with his friends recently, but defending Charles’s honor wouldn’t be one of them.

Sebastian chuckled, all teeth as sharp as a shark’s. “’Course not, m’boy. We’re talking about Lehnsherr. From the Mathematics department. Over there?”

Hank’s gaze snapped to the point Shaw was indicating. There Erik was, on the threshold of the mansion, looking for all the world like he was in the wrong place.

With his brown turtleneck and loafers, he stood out like a sore thumb.

“Lehnsherr, get your ass over here! We were just talking about you.” Shaw said, his words clearly a demand.

Hank watched closely as Erik approached, fists clenched tightly by his sides. “Hello, Professor Lehnsherr.” He said softly. Erik ignored him.

“What are you doing here, Shaw?” He said.

Shaw laughed. “Straight to the punch, aren’t we, son?”

“I am not your son.” The quiet fury in Erik’s voice was impossible to miss.

Hank desperately scanned the crowd for Charles, trying to catch his eye with any means necessary. When he finally spotted the shorter man, wedged between a voluptuous woman in a red dress, and a lanky man in a tweed suit, he made exaggerated motions at him.

Charles shrugged, bewildered, and waved a hand at Hank.

Hank gave him a fierce look and made small gestures for Charles to come over.

Their silent conversation warred for several more seconds before Charles finally walked over, Erik and Shaw disagreeing in a politely heated manner beside Hank.

“Welcome, Erik. I’m surprised to see you here. Did Ororo tell you about the party?” Charles said. His voice was hardly warm, but he (at least) managed to sound somewhat pleased that Erik was here. Hank didn’t miss the appreciative once-over Erik gave Charles when he realized who was approaching.

It looked like things hadn’t changed that much, even after all these years.

Erik nodded, looking grateful for the interruption. “I saw the email, actually. I don’t think you ever took me off the chain.” The words were simple, but Hank could see the intense eye contact they’d made, gaze locked together like they were the only two people in the room.

He couldn’t help but wonder if this was the first time they’d really _spoken_ since they were students here.

Charles made an apologetic noise. “Well, at least it ended happily. I’ll be sure to remove you from the mailing group when I’m home, if that would make you more comfortable.”

“No no, it’s been rather nice, getting the updates. I like hearing how your family has been.”

Hank could have cut the tension in the room with a knife.

“We’ve been good, we have. And you? I hear great things are coming from the math department. Doesn’t surprise me. You guys were always the pride and joy of the school.” Charles was practically falling over himself to praise the department, something Hank found strange since just last week he’d been complaining about the quality of the courses this year. Love did funny things to a person, it seemed.

Not that he knew anything about love, he thought bitterly.

It wasn’t resentment he felt for the practiced ease the two professors had with each other, but something more akin to jealousy. The feeling burbled up under his skin, and writhed uncomfortably. _He wanted that_. The realization struck him suddenly in a way that made the party sound muted and far away.

Or maybe it was the group around them, all pretending not to be eavesdropping on Charles and Erik. Hank noticed that they’d quieted considerably, eyes shifting towards the pair with interest. Clearly hating that the attention was not focused solely on him, Shaw launched into a discussion of skirt length of the women in attendance. He was on his fourth lewd comment about Raven’s hemline when Hank finally decided to walk away. Charles and Erik were fine, doing better than Hank had ever seen them together. Besides, it was that, or punch someone.

The newfound wave of confusing emotions felt like a hand closing around his heart, and he didn’t like it.

He retreated to the bathroom.

 

                                                                                                                          

* * *

 

 

Charles’s guest bathroom was a place Hank was uncomfortably familiar with. Every party he attended here seemed to end the same way; Hank hiding in the bathroom to avoid the crowd. The circumstances always differed, as did his level of intoxication, but it felt painfully familiar.

Like he hadn’t really progressed from that scared fifteen-year-old who first met Raven and Charles in any measurable way.

Well, he’d definitely gotten worse at making friends, if he were using those statistics.

A splash of cold water from the sink helped to wake him a little, but his head still felt foggy. He’d never wanted a romantic relationship, never craved physical intimacy (awkward teenage lust-for-Raven stage aside), and yet…..Here he was wondering what it would be like to hold someone’s hand.

Logically he knew it would be sweaty. Knew? Assumed.

His tongue felt fuzzy, the sour taste of vodka heavy in the back of his mouth. How much had he had to drink?

He shook his head. People weren’t good companions for Hank. Books were. His experiments were. But people had always let him down when he’d tried with them, so maybe he’d just stopped attempting to force a connection.

_No_ , a little voice somewhere in the back of his head whispered. _You don’t deserve to feel like this, when there are people out there who you’ve hurt that still don’t know you’re sorry for it. Feel bad after you apologize._

But walking back to campus, finding the boys, and issuing a formal apology seemed like a lot of work for a Wednesday night.

Hank resolved to do it in the morning.

Right now he needed a drink, something to help him forget anyone was even upset with him. Hank did his best thinking when he was sober, and he so did not want to be thinking for the next couple of hours.

Embracing his true destiny as Charles Xavier’s protégé, Hank made the long trek down to the kitchen to find the rest of the booze.

 

                                                                                                                 

* * *

 

 

“Fancy seeing you here.”

Hank started at the noise, swallowing his eggnog down the wrong way and choking on it. The liquid spluttered in his throat as he whirled to face his attacker. “ _Alex?_ ”

The blonde boy was leaning against Charles’s kitchen island, a nonchalant look on his face. But Hank had gotten pretty good at body language thanks to his three required Psychology classes, and he knew Alex was secretly uncomfortable.

“That’s me…” Alex said with a small wave. “You might want to close the fridge. I think Charles would protest his whole Christmas dinner going to waste because of one sneak-attack.”

“So you admit that what you did was an attack?” Hank said, hope for swift forgiveness growing inside of him.

Alex seemed to wrestle with something for a moment, mouth fighting a smile before it returned to its downturned position. “Look, man. I could stand here all night and pretend to be chummy with you, but we both know nothing’s going to change if I do that.”

Hank took a swig out of the gallon jug of eggnog. “What needs to change? Everything’s good here. All good on the home front.”

Alex’s sullen expression intensified. “Cut it out. You’re a dick, and you know it.”

“I apologized for that!” Hank protested. “I apologized for everything. What more do you want?”

“Not to me you didn’t. Not to Darwin, or Sean, or Bobby, or Warren. Or did you forget that like you forgot to come home?”

“Forgot to— _What_?” Hank balked at the other boy, arms folding across his chest, eggnog forgotten on the counter behind him. How could Alex have forgotten his text? The one telling Hank not to come home. That had been pretty damn specific. “You _told me_ not to. I’m only doing what you wanted me to do. If you wanted me to apologize, you should have said something.”

Alex’s face was an ugly shade of red now, and the vein in his throat was twitching like mad. “Don’t. Don’t do that. Do _not_ put this shit on me, Hank. I’m tired of seeing you walk around like you can do no wrong, like everyone else is to blame when you need to own up to the fact that you’re just as much at fault as they are. Cause guess what? You’re human, Hank! You make mistakes. So fucking what? You need to own that shit.” He paused, running a hand through his hair fiercely. “I told you not to come home _that night_ , you complete moron. Not ever. You live there! You owed us an apology! You should have come home no matter what you thought I was saying.”

“Then you should have been more clear! _We all hate you, and don’t want you to come back_ sounds really basic to me. I’m sorry if I didn’t read into your thirty-character text message the way I was supposed to. Next time I’ll have a forensic accountant look it over before I make any assumptions!” Hank shot back, hands balled in his sweater.

“Could you _be_ more pretentious? I don’t even know what you’re saying half the fucking time! Could you just—Argh!” Alex took a step forward and smacked the counter with his palm. He was too close now, his body language aggressive and threatening in Hank’s personal space.

Hank hated him in that moment. But he hated himself more.

Somehow in all his years of fighting with the other man, things had never quite progressed to this point. Either Alex teased and annoyed and acted childish, or Hank fumed and yelled and chastised. There was no back and forth, no anger filling the whole room to the breaking point. Nothing to indicate a real _fight_ was going on. Nothing to indicate Alex actually cared about it as anything other than a brief distraction. And yet, now they were at each other’s throats.

Somehow, the difference was everything.

Alex continued. “And you know what? You always act like you’re better than we are because you don’t get mad, but here you are! Yelling at me about god-knows-what, saying words that only people with two advanced degrees would understand! Who’s better than who now, huh? Who—”

And then they were kissing.

Hot hands everywhere, mouths a little sloppy with anger and booze, but _good_ none-the-less.

Maybe Hank was drunk. Maybe he was lonely, and sad, and scared, and desperately wanting to go home. Maybe Alex was there, and warm, and oh-so alive. Hank would never know exactly when the flip inside him switched on, and he realized that his desire to date _someone_ had turned into desire to date _Alex_.

At least the other man seemed to be a willing participant in this new stage in their relationship.

“I’m still mad at you.” Alex panted against his lips, tongue flicking across Hank’s in an aggressive power-play. He wanted control of the kiss now, and Hank was just pissed off enough to fight him for it.

The resulting clash of lips made Hank’s knees buckle.

“I don’t care.” He said in return, already busy working his hands under Alex’s many layers. He wanted to feel that warm skin now, in a different way than he’d ever thought of it before.

Alex detached from Hank’s mouth, head tilting up to bite at a point right behind Hank’s ear, and that was the end.

“ _Fuck,_ ” He hissed, back colliding with the edge of the countertop as Alex backed him up and boxed him in. His elbow hit the carton of eggnog he’d stashed there and knocked it over. He couldn’t be bothered to pick it up.

Alex’s hot mouth found his again, and his hands tangled in Hank’s hair with a frustrated groan.

But Hank couldn’t let this go on without finishing their conversation. It wouldn’t feel right to keep kissing Alex if he thought Hank saw him as so unimportant. Almost as though he was taking advantage of his friend.

“Alex, I—Alex stop, I’m. I’m sorry.” He forced out, pulling away and resting his forehead against Alex’s.

Alex licked his lips, eyes flickering from Hank’s mouth to his eyes in a way that said he absolutely wasn’t paying attention to the words being spoken.

“Alex, listen. Please. I’m sorry for all of it. I’m working on it, I’m gonna try harder to listen to you guys.”

Alex nodded quickly, head working like a bobble-head as he leaned in again. “Got it, Einstein. I forgive you, we’re all square.”

Hank put up a hand between them before Alex could kiss him. “Please don’t just forgive me because you want to kiss me again. I want to think I made a compelling enough apology for you to forgive me without added persuasion. And maybe so I can try to persuade you more later if you still aren’t convinced.”

“I’m definitely convinced. One hundred percent. Okay? Okay.” Alex’s pupils were still dilated, and Hank really didn’t feel right about taking his accepted apology as anything other than a shock of attraction.

“Seriously. We can do this later, okay? I promise. But I feel weird about this.”

Alex took a long moment to think, backing up enough for Hank to move to the sink and splash some cold water on his face. “Okay. Fine. Yeah. You’re right. God, why are you always so sensible? I hate it. Even when you’re completely, off-your-ass drunk.  

“I’m not _that_ drunk.” Hank shot back with a frown. He would have uncrossed his arms and put them on his hips if he thought he could do it without getting looking like a baby horse walking for the first time. God, he really was buzzed. “Did I kiss like a drunk person?” Sober Hank would never have been so bold, but this wasn’t the time for sober Hank. That asshole had never done a thing for him.

Alex chuckled, cheeks still tinged with red. He looked more relaxed than Hank had ever seen him. He shook his head fondly, and Hank was positive he had a response ready, but shouting from the dining room drew both of their attention away from the moment.

_“—As if I’d want to risk the hit my reputation would take from staying at a party the Science department was throwing!”_ The voice sounded suspiciously like Professor Lehnsherr’s.

Hank turned back to Alex, eyes wide. “To be continued?”

Alex’s eyes glittered as he let go of Hank. “To be continued.” But his fingers found Hank’s wrist as he started to leave, voice quiet with hidden insecurity. “Come home, alright? Maybe then you’ll find out if I really forgive you.”

The temptation to stay in the moment was too strong, but the people needed him.

He could feel his buzz wearing off rapidly as he got closer to the yelling, wishing with all his being that someone else could be the adult tonight.

He rounded the corner to the foyer, where Erik and Charles were facing off. They were both bright red and seething, a wide circle of guests around them like they had the plague. Hank didn’t blame them for avoiding the madness.

“Oh please! You wouldn’t know class if it walked over and slapped you in the face!” Charles bellowed, hands moving furiously in the jittery way they did when he got upset. Erik, on the other hand, had gone rigidly stiff like he’d been placed on a pole. The contrast was almost funny.

“Believe me, I noticed when _class_ slapped me at the summer bonfire of ’88. Oh, and again when _class_ hit me for no reason at the football game in ’93. And after that when class—”

“That’s _enough_!” Hank yelled at them, certain his shock was etched across his face. They were fully grown adults acting like children. While surrounded by their colleagues and students. They should be ashamed. “What do you two think you’re doing? This is a party! You were getting along so well. Can’t we go back to that?”

Erik and Charles regarded each other coolly, chests still heaving with emotion and unspoken words. “ _No_.” They agreed firmly in unison.

Well okay then. Hank blinked at them. “Shouldn’t one of you be storming off now, then? If you can’t agree to get along?”

“I will.” Erik said, and stormed away.

“Good! Run away! It’s my house anyway!” Charles screamed after him. Hank had to try hard to stop himself from facepalming.

No sooner had Erik left than Charles began downing a glass of champagne and bursting into tears. He collapsed to the floor dramatically, face buried in his sweater-covered hands. Hank would have found it comical if he didn’t know Charles was really, truly hurting.

The rest of the guests murmured and chattered around them, some already starting to file out of the mansion. It was clear to them all that the party was over.

 

                                                                                                            

* * *

 

 

The next day Hank packed up his things and went back to the Delta house. Charles wasn’t in a place to argue (or offer much by way of a goodbye, but Hank hadn’t minded), so he left as soon as he got everything packed up.

For a guy who prided himself on being tidy, he certainly left a lot of things lying around.

It was early enough in the day that all of the Delta’s were home—and late enough that most of them were actually awake. Hank walked in with his head hung low and his backpack hanging from his arm by its strap. He still felt lower than dirt, but it was nice knowing Alex had been won over, at least.

“Hey guys…”

The guys hanging around the living room looked at him with identical expressions of displeasure on their faces.

“What do you want, Hank?” Bobby barked.

Hank sighed. “I want to apologize. If you’ll let me.” He waited for confirmation, or agreement, or anything really. There was silence. Okay, guess they were really playing hard-ball. “Um, yeah. So I know I’ve been kind of an asshole these past few months. Maybe I’ve been a little entitled and rude to you guys. I know you aren’t all stupid football players. You’re actual people. And if you’ll have me back, I’d love a chance to get to know you.”

It wasn’t much, but it was what Hank had in him. Apparently, it was enough for the other boys, because Kurt smiled.

“Of course you can, Hank. We forgeeve you. You are a Delta X forever!”

That didn’t mean everyone looked convinced, however. Warren was still glaring at the ground in front of him, and Bobby looked torn. Hank vowed to give them both one-on-one apologies later.

“Let’s take a vote, then, okay?” Alex said, because he was helpful like that. “Who all wants Hank to stay in Delta?”

Twelve hands shot up, including Bobby’s.

“Okay. Now who wants Hank to leave?”

The remaining three hands went up. Warren, Armando, and Josh. _Wow_. Hank might have been expecting more than that to want him to go, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less for them to say it to his face.

“That’s okay, guys. I’ll take off.” He started, but Alex leveled him with a glare.

“You aren’t going anywhere, Glasses.” Alex turned back to the three _no_ votes. “If Hank apologizes to you personally _and_ promises to make breakfast for a month, will you let him back in?”

They glanced at each other, clearly weighing the pro’s and con’s. After a few moments they turned back, and Armando said: “Agreed.”

And just like that, Hank was a member of Delta X again.

 

                                                                                                                

* * *

 

 

**JANUARY.**

The peace didn’t last long. By the time January fourth rolled around, the buzz of the holidays had worn off, and the anticipation of classes starting back up had begun to sink in. Personally, Hank felt grateful for the distraction. He needed something to take his mind off Alex’s gaze on him all the time.

Hank was a pretty smart guy, so of course he’d figured out that he wasn’t one hundred percent straight by this point in his life. He knew he liked men in the same way he liked women; fascinated by the long, beautiful planes of their bodies, and the casual way they moved through life. But that didn’t mean he made a habit of going around kissing them during holiday parties.

He’d realized he was attracted to guys in the sort of distant way that one usually reserved for knowledge of menu changes at a restaurant they went to occasionally. A new piece of information, sure, but hardly relevant to everyday life. After all, he’d never before wondered whether he might want to date a guy.

And maybe he was a little confused. So what? Not everyone was selfaware enough to have gone through their sexuality crisis before the age of eighteen. Hank had definitely had better things to do at that age.

Still, it was a little inconvenient to have to deal with this new side of himself now. He wondered what Raven would have said to guide him through this change, wishing for the briefest of moments that they were still speaking. Probably nothing helpful, anyway. She’d always been happier to tease him about his dating life than actually offer advice.

Not that he was dating Alex! They were about as far from dating as two near-strangers who’d shared a steamy kiss in someone else’s kitchen could be.

Except no one seemed to have given Alex that memo.

He was around _all the time_ , nosing himself into Hank’s business and running into him on campus. Which was suspicious, since classes hadn’t started yet, and Alex had no reason to be on campus. Hank, at least, had the excuse of needing to use the science lab. HAlex had even brought him a coffee when he was swamped in financial aid paperwork.

Hank had gone back to his earlier hypothesis: Alex Summers was too complicated to figure out.

Thankfully, a distraction from the enigma that was Alex came in the form of a Kappa prank. Apparently it had been too much to hope that they would have simply forgotten about the war over break.

It was someone else who discovered the mess this time (something Hank was eternally grateful for, as he was getting a bit tired of being the one to handle every new wave of destruction), and Hank only walked in mid clean-up.

Still too soon in his opinion.

“Um. Hello, Bobby.” Hank said, head tilted to look down at his housemate.

Amongst the loud squeals and thumping noises the struggling rabbit in his arms was making, Bobby offered a weak greeting. From upstairs there came more yelling and the sounds of animal nails scrabbling on the wood floor. Hank sighed.

“What are you doing?” He asked, maintaining a calm energy despite everything in his body that screamed for him to start freaking out.

“Cl— _ooph_ —cleaning!” Bobby bit out as the rabbit made a wild bid for freedom. “Ask—shit! Ask Scott.”

Scott was in the kitchen on a step ladder, a huge chunk of cheddar cheese in his hand. Without turning to look at Hank, he hissed a warning. “The mice are in the cupboards. We’ve got two of them, and I’m close to a third, but we think there’s more. You might want to order in for dinner.”

“Kappa’s?” Hank said.

“Kappa’s.” Scott confirmed.

He looked a bit ridiculous, trying to coax the tiny animal down from the shelf, but if telling him that meant Hank would have to deal with it instead, Hank was going to stay quiet.

“I’m seriously starting to think we need to do something about those guys.” Scott continued.

Hank found himself flashing back to that first day he’d come home to discover the furniture on the front lawn, and wished, yet again, that he’d just walked away then and not come back.

“What do you call the past six months? Leaving the situation alone?” Hank said, feeling his patience wearing thin. This _new year, new him_ thing was getting a bit old, especially when it meant he had to be understanding of the stupid things his frat brothers said.

“Well, no. Obviously we had a hand in letting things escalate this far, but clearly it wasn’t enough. We didn’t show them that they can’t beat us. We have to let them know they won’t ever win against us.” Scott dropped the cheese and climbed down the ladder. “Can you hand me that bag there?”

Hank followed his finger, pulling several live-batch traps out of the bag and handing them over. At least Scott was prepared. He persisted. “Maybe we should report this to somebody. I mean, these animals have to belong to someone. They’re going to want them back at some point.”

Scott waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. I think they belong to the science department. They all have little tags. We’ll just catch them really quick, and pop them back in their cages tonight. Nobody ever needs to know.”

“Okay…” But Hank would know, and personally that was bad enough.

“Kurt and Piotr caught a couple guinea pigs upstairs, if you want to help them.” Scott said, focus back on trapping the mouse.

Hank turned to go. “Sure.”

Instead of heading upstairs, he walked right back out and set up shop hiding in the library until sunset.

 

                                                                                                               

* * *

 

 

When he returned home, fingers freezing and lips numb from the walk across campus, Alex and Sean were in the (mercifully clean and wildlife free) living room.

Alex raised his head and gave a short smile. “Hey. Cold out there?”

Hank chose to blow viciously onto his still-frozen hands instead of answering.

“We got all the animals back to the science zoo, and the house cleaned up around six. I say we, but I missed out thanks to football practice. What’s your excuse? And don’t say you were writing your dissertation, because I know for a fact that you haven’t touched that thing in months.”

Hank briefly wondered when Alex had gotten so observant, but his thoughts were strangled by Alex getting off the couch and moving in front of Hank, wrapping his own big hands around Hank’s frozen fingers. They were far too close for Hank’s comfort, but his fingers were finally starting to feel better, and he couldn’t bring himself to move away. Sean seemed to be asleep on the loveseat, so Hank was at least okay to stay where they were for a moment longer.

“Next time you should wear gloves.” Alex made a face. “Wait, do you even own a pair? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear any before.”

“You don’t wear gloves, either.” Hank pointed out.

“That’s different. You’re a _scientist_ , Hank. Your hands are your money-makers.”

“You’re a football player. Your hands are also your money-makers. More so than mine, actually. I can just tell someone else what formulas to write for me, or what measurements to make. You can’t dictate a football pass to someone.” Hank said. His hands were officially warm now, but he was still making no effort to move away.

“I run warm, I’ve never really needed gloves. But your concern is appreciated.” Alex winked.

“I’m not—You were concerned about me. I was just pointing out that your concern makes no sense.” Hank countered.

Alex rolled his eyes, shifting an almost imperceptible amount closer to Hank. “This is why I hate you. You can never admit when you just _care_ about something for no reason. There always has to be some logic, or explanation behind it.”

“Oh, I can’t admit I care, huh? Really?” Hank glared down at Alex, but the words were too comical for him to take seriously. They were also kind of right.

“ _Really_.” Alex agreed.

“You’re insufferable. The absolute worst. I’m leaving right now.” Hank claimed. Still he didn’t move.

“Oh, sure you are. Like you could walk away from all this.” Alex replied, grinning up at him, nose almost touching Hank’s.

Hank thought _fuck it_ , and leaned in.

He could feel Alex smiling into the kiss, hands letting go of Hank’s and moving to his shoulders. It was a heavy kiss, not urgent and angry like the one they’d shared at Charles’s house, but forceful nonetheless. He wanted Alex to _feel_ it. It was hard to gauge Alex’s interest, his hard lines and angles so much different from the softness of girls Hank was used to, and he could feel his anxiety rising.

What if he wasn’t any good at this? What if Alex didn’t really want to kiss him? What if—there were too many to count, but they all ran through Hank’s mind at lightning speed.

Alex was so experienced—Hank had seen him with his conquests the morning after parties or especially good first dates—and he had to be judging Hank’s performance. He tilted his head, trying to get a better angle, but something just didn’t feel right.

Objectively, it was better than their first, which had consisted of clacking teeth and spit everywhere, frustrated desperation leaving scratch marks down Alex’s back. But it was missing something, some of the heat Hank had felt before.

He swiped his tongue into Alex’s mouth and pressed closer, seeking to find some of that hopeless want he’d experienced that night.

And yet—there was nothing.

Hank pulled back. Alex was staring at him, disappointment reflected in his eyes.

He cleared his throat. “So, uh. I should probably get to bed.”

Alex’s face shut down, whatever last bits of hope there disappearing. “Right.”

“This was…This was fun. We should do it again.” He didn’t really mean it.

“Yeah. We’ll talk. I do know where you live, after all.” Alex didn’t really mean it, either. His arms were folded across his chest, and his gaze was a steely glare at the far wall. If Hank didn’t know better, he’d think Alex was trying to drill holes in it.

Hank trudged upstairs and changed into his pajama’s, wondering the whole time what he was doing wrong. When he hated Alex, things were so filled with tension it made his head hurt. But when he and Alex were getting along, they had about as much chemistry as steamed vegetables did.

What did that even mean?

                                                                                                                

* * *

 

**MARCH.**

It was the first prank they’d done in almost a month, and Hank was as apprehensive as the rest of them were. After the Kappa’s had set the lab animals free in their house, it was clear that this was war. There was no going back now.

Of course, releasing live animals into someone’s house can be kind of hard to top, and the boys of Delta X had been stumped for nearly two weeks.

It had been a cloudy Sunday afternoon when Sean perked up on the couch, magazine falling onto his lap with a rustle. “Guys! I know what we should do. We should hack into the Kappa’s student records.”

“Didn’t Delta already do that in the nineties?” Armando had said from somewhere in the kitchen.

“Well yeah, but this is different. We’re going to…..change a bunch of stuff, not publish it in the newspaper.” Sean had countered, still looking delighted.

“Change what kind of stuff?” Had been Scott’s first question, looking seriously like he was going to say no.

“Nothing major, just how much they owe the school and stuff. The office will figure that out before they ever have to pay anything, but it’ll be a hassle while it lasts.” Sean had assured the group.

“Oh, and maybe we’ll mess with their school medical files, too. Someone’s having a herpes flare.” Josh said with a wicked grin.

It had taken a lot of convincing, but finally Scott had agreed.

Hank, of course, brought nothing to the table in this particular scheme, and decided to leave the B and E to the experts. He probably should’ve been more worried by how quickly Jean-Paul and Warren volunteered to go, but he was finally starting to agree with Scott. This was war. If there were casualties, there were casualties. They all knew the risks.

He did, however, end up sitting up and waiting for them to return home, anxiety a slow burble in his stomach. He cared a lot about the other boys, even though it had been hard for him to admit to himself, and he didn’t want them getting into trouble.

In a way, he felt closer to them now that he’d apologized and everyone had gotten a chance to make peace with Hank’s past mistakes. It was a little like he’d finally realized that these boys were his friends for good now, and no matter what kinds of stupid arguments they had, they’d always find a way to forgive each other.

It was a nice feeling, having that security in a relationship. Hank had never really been close enough to anybody to have that before.

Raven, he’d decided, did not count, because it seemed like he’d lost her since they started fighting. And anyway, she’d been pulling away from him for over a year before that.

His fault, he knew. There was a lot he’d messed up. But that didn’t make it any easier to admit.

When ten o’clock came and went, Hank started to get worried. There was no way something as simple as this should be taking three hours. The admissions office was a ten minute walk from the house.

When eleven o’clock ticked by, Hank was on his third antacid. Something must have happened to them. They were probably sitting somewhere in some musty jail cell, unable to call for help, or even for their coats. It was probably cold, with all the concrete around them.

By the time twelve-thirty was approaching, Hank was ready to storm the local police station to find them.

As it turned out, he didn’t need to. The ringing phone on the counter had the number for the local police station on the caller ID (a number Hank had unfortunately memorized after Warren got picked up for attacking a guy in a MacDonald’s), and he sighed. It was half relieved and half frustrated.

“Hello?”

_“Hello, is this Hank McCoy speaking? We have your friends down at the station, can you come pick them up?”_

Hank muttered something vaguely vulgar to himself. “Yes, of course, officer. We’ll be right there. I’m so sorry for the trouble.”

He stopped only to yell at Scott, and grab his jacket, deciding to leave the boys coats behind. They deserved to be cold in that cell.

 

                                                                                                             

* * *

 

 

“What the _hell_ were you four thinking?” Dean MacTaggert was yelling when Scott and Hank arrived. That was a bad sign. Both the screaming and the fact that she was there to begin with. Dean MacTaggert was pretty hands off for a student affairs advisor, so for her to be here now meant this was a big deal.

Inside the tiny cell, Warren and Jamie sandwiched Alex on the bench, while Jean-Paul leaned against the wall next to them. They looked incredibly bored with the situation. Or maybe it was petulant. Hank had never been very good at reading facial cues.

His hands clenched against his sides _. Damn it, Alex_. Hank wanted to punch the little asshole right in the face. _You’re still on probation. You can’t afford to make mistakes like this._ But Alex couldn’t hear him. And probably wouldn’t have cared anyway.

“This is a school! A place of learning and education! The first lesson you should have learned was not to try to break into the place!” Dean MacTaggert was telling them, seemingly oblivious to Hank and Scott’s appearance.

Her words struck Hank as odd, because the school kind of had shitty security. That was why the boys had felt comfortable breaking in in the first place. He couldn’t picture the team of inept guards being swift enough to stop them.

“It wasn’t exactly hard,” Warren muttered, but it wasn’t nearly quiet enough. Dean MacTaggert rounded on him, eyes filled with fury.

“You’re just lucky the cops got there when they did! If you’d actually managed to do anything other than jimmy the window open, you boys would be _dead meat_. Thank god for anonymous tips…” She ran a hand over her ponytail, smoothing down the fly-aways that had appeared during her lecture.

“Anonymous tip?” Scott jumped in, looking for all his eagerness like a Labrador Retriever catching sight of a tennis ball. “What anonymous tip?”

“It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like, Scott.” Dean MacTaggert looked tired. It was then that Hank noticed she still had her pajama pants on under her coat. She must have been asleep when she got the call.  “Someone called the police and told them you were planning to break into the school. And thank god for that. I can’t even imagine what these four were planning to do in the office.”

“It was a sex thing.” Alex offered oh-so helpfully. Scott glared at him. Dean MacTaggert elected to ignore the comment.

“Thank you, Dean MacTaggert. If it’s not too much trouble, could we take them home now? We’ve got class in the morning.” Hank said, trying to seem smaller than he was so as not to incite her wrath. She fixed him with a stern look.

“I hope you recognize the seriousness of this situation. All four of your brothers might have been arrested _and_ kicked out tonight. You’re just lucky the school won’t be pressing charges.”

Hank took a moment to mentally fist-pump that victory, but MacTaggert wasn’t finished.

“We’ve decided to place the four of them on academic probation until further notice.” She told him. Hank gaped at her. “You’re lucky we don’t give you probation as well, Mr. McCoy. Unfortunately, there’s no proof any of the rest of you had anything to do with this. But if I know frat boys, you were all involved in a scheme like this.” She sighed. “Don’t take this as getting off light. This is strike one. You do so much as sneeze funny, and you’re out of here. Got it?”

All six Delta’s nodded. She clapped her hands together and motioned at the cop standing nearby. “Let them go home, officer. It’s been a long night.”

 

                                                                                                             

* * *

 

 

Nobody said anything for a long time, squeezed uncomfortably into the back of Scott’s mustang. They were all, Hank included, waiting for Scott to say something. When it became apparent that he wasn’t going to be starting this conversation, Hank reached back and socked Alex in the thigh.

“ _Ow_ …Fine. Scott? We’re sorry. Really sorry. We weren’t trying to make a mess of things.”

Scott kept his eyes on the road, but Hank saw the way his shoulders relaxed slowly in the dim light. “It’s okay, Alex. I know you weren’t trying to get in trouble. But the reality is that you’re on probation already. The last thing you need is to fuck up now and end up gone for good. All over some stupid prank war. This has gone too far.”

“I know, okay? I’m sorry. We all are. This won’t happen again. We’ll plan better next time—”

“No! There won’t _be_ a next time.” Scott cut in. “This is never happening again. We’re out. The Kappa’s can do whatever they want to us, it doesn’t matter. Nobody is getting kicked out for this childish feud.”

Privately, Hank agreed.

“ _Fine_. Fuck. This _sucks_.” Alex hissed, foot slamming into the passenger seat. The rest of the boys were smart enough to stay silent as Alex vented his frustration on the back of Hank’s seat.

“Yeah, it does. Maybe next time you’ll _think_ before you try to break into the school you’re currently attending.” Scott said. His knuckles were crepe-paper white on the steering wheel.

“Scott, _enough_.” Hank said quietly.

“You know what--?!” Alex surged forward over the center console, breathing erratic.

Hank dropped his hand onto Alex’s knee, and the seething boy went silent.

He could feel Alex’s anger simmering under the surface for the rest of the ride home, knowing full-well how likely he was to receive the brunt of the rage for intervening. It was likely Alex didn’t even remember why he’d been upset in the first place now that the all-encompassing anger had taken over.

Hank knew this song and dance well. They’d all make it out just fine, save for the few holes in the wall, and in the end they’d be okay. Still, his stomach curled to knots as the car pulled into the driveway and the boys got out.

He was smart enough to hang around outside while Scott and the troublemakers filed into the ivy-covered house wearily, waiting for Alex to start yelling somewhere that wasn’t housing eleven sleeping men.

“It wasn’t your place to do that.” Alex said forcefully. But it was at a reasonable decibel, so Hank considered that a win.

“I had to do something. He was driving. You couldn’t have done anything to him without hurting us all.” Hank said. His hands were shoved deep in his coat pockets, but they still felt restless. The memory of their disappointing kiss hung in the air, an unspoken elephant in the yard. Hank was so not the right person to deal with this right now.

“You could have done nothing.” Alex insisted stubbornly, but Hank could tell he didn’t really believe that to be an option.

“And what? Let him tear into you, and you try to throttle him from the back seat? No thanks. I value my life too much.” Hank scoffed.

“You could have just butted out! I wish you’d stop acting like you were in charge of everybody and everything in the whole entire fucking world! I’m getting sick of this Mr. Miyagi _patience is a virtue_ bullcrap. Not everybody can just swallow their emotions all the time like you! Some of us have to feel things, even when they’re inconvenient to your _schedule_.” Alex spit out, and Hank felt completely lost.

It was like he was having a totally different conversation than Alex was, and neither of them had any clue how to get on the same page. He missed the simplicity of the days when Alex tripped him, laughed, and then ignored him.

“You were so much easier to understand when you hated me.” Hank told him, tossing a hand up and heading for the stairs. He wasn’t going to stick around and take Alex’s abuse if he didn’t have to.

“Hated you? _Hated_ you?! You really are a fucking idiot, aren’t you? I’ve had the biggest, most idiotic crush on you for _years_ , you complete moron. I’ve been trying to get your attention since you joined this god-awful fraternity!” The words rang in the air, halting Hank before he could put his foot on the bottom step. There was a sinking feeling in his gut as he thought back to every interaction they’d ever had, the feeling of a rug being pulled out from under him the closest comparison he could make to realizing Alex liked him. Really, seriously liked him.

If Hank thought about it hard enough, if he used Alex logic and squinted at the situation, he could see why Alex had been so upset after their failed kiss.

“But, you know what? Maybe I do kind of hate you.” Alex continued, seeming not to notice the internal tailspin Hank had gone into.

It was one thing if he maybe kind of liked Alex. He could deal with that at his own pace, come to terms with that however he needed to. But Alex threw an unknown into the situation. Hank didn’t know what Alex wanted from him, or….or what he’d expect. If he’d want more, or if he’d leave when he didn’t get that. It was too much to think about at three in the morning.

“I hate the way you act like everything is a math equation, some problem for you to _solve_. News flash, not everything can be fucking fixed. And this—” Alex motioned between them. “— _Whatever_ between us, you can’t think it away! You have to just go with it. That’s what you’ve been doing, right? Overthinking things to the point of ruining it for yourself. I see you do it all the time.”

“You want me to just go with it? Alex—jesus—you don’t know what you’re asking me to do! I’ve never really even thought about this before, and now….I don’t know how to do this. The only person I’ve ever really liked was Raven, and I had a crush on her for six years before we finally stopped talking! Does that sound healthy to you?”

Alex laughed, too loudly and too harshly for the situation. “Do I look like I care about healthy, Hank? Does anything about me scream ‘this guy knows how to have functional relationships’ to you? So we’ll figure it out together, okay? That’s what--”

“That’s _what_ , Alex?” But Hank was pretty sure he knew the answer.

Alex strode forward, hand latching onto the front of Hank’s shirt, and yanking him forward. “I’m gonna kiss you.” He told Hank harshly. Hank could only nod.

For the first time, Alex initiated the kiss, a hot press of lips that held every bit of the heat Hank had wanted for them. His mind went blank.

He gasped against Alex’s mouth, dragging the shorter man as close as he possibly could. This was everything he’d wanted and more, searing warmth flooding his stomach as the kiss deepened, Alex still keyed up from his earlier brush with the law.

Without Hank getting lost in his own head, they worked great together. Better than great, whatever that word was. Spectacular. Cheesy fireworks and little nerve endings exploding good.

He hated to admit it, but Alex was right. He’d been psyching himself out by overthinking it, and that had ruined things before. He vowed to live only in the moment from here on out.

And if the next moment was anything like this one, it would be pretty damn great.

Eventually the kiss broke, a mutual need for air and Hank’s shaking hands telling them both it was time to slow down.

Hank sucked in some of the cool night air, enjoying the feeling of his lungs expanding. They didn’t need to share any words.

“I told you so.” Alex whispered.

Hank didn’t say anything, and after a moment Alex dropped his head and kicked at a clump of grass in front of the porch. Any positive improvement in his mood was gone again.

“I think I fucked everything up. God. If I get kicked out, there’s no school in the world that would take me. I’m screwed.”

Hank tried to regroup, switching his brain from its last task to comforting Alex. It was a hard sell, but eventually he managed to say: “But you didn’t get kicked out. You’re still here, and you’re still doing fine. You just have….a couple more rules to follow now. You can do rules, right? You were in jail.”

That got a chuckle out of Alex. “Yeah. I guess I can.”

“We’ll figure it out together, okay? You just have to promise not to try anymore pranking. Deal?”

Alex rolled his shoulders and let out a heavy breath, but in the end he nodded. “Deal.”

 

                                                                                                                   

* * *

 

 

**APRIL.**

The next month went by in a whirlwind. The Kappa’s pulled two more pranks before they realized the Delta’s weren’t going to be retaliating, including a particularly spectacular snow day prank on April Fool's Day that left their walkway icy for a week. Hank’s classes proved to be more difficult than he’d thought they would be, and he ended up spending most of his time in the lab. The staff there became quite fond of him, though he’s sure it had more to do with the fact that he’s often there so late that they go home and he was left to lock up rather than any soft spot they had for his personality.

This made spending time with Alex difficult, though in some ways Hank was glad for that. An Alex who was distracted waiting for something was far less destructive than an Alex with his full attention on chaos.

The whole house had agreed to call the pranks off, and they were now just waiting for the Kappa’s to pull another prank. It didn’t matter much, since they’d promised Scott they wouldn’t retaliate, but there was a certain principle to the matter. They didn’t want to be blindsided again.

Hank ran into Raven for the first time in forever, an awkward encounter in the library that ended in her storming away before he could stammer out more than five words.

Maybe it was for the best. All his research indicated that most people didn’t stay close to high school friends after graduation, and why had he thought he and Raven would be any different, anyway? They’d always had their issues. This just brought them all to light.

He’d spoken to Charles once since the Christmas party, and while it was clear the professor harbored no ill will towards Hank, things were a little tense. It had made Hank wonder if he didn’t have more people to apologize to out there.

When April finally crept towards its close and the clouds began to recede, Hank had nearly forgotten that there had ever been a prank war between their house and Kappa. The campus had been quiet through the tail-end of winter, a blessing given the icy sheets covering the sidewalks, and Hank wasn’t ready to go back to the hustle and bustle of spring.

Unfortunately, the silence was really just the calm before the storm.

It was a chilly Thursday, deceptively sunny outside, though Hank was in a pretty good mood. He’d managed to shut down a rather unfortunate discussion about driving a golf cart into the Kappa’s pool that afternoon (“But Hank! Think about it. They’d never suspect it was us. None of us even play golf.” Sean had said, shooting Hank finger guns like that would convince him to say yes. “You know what Scott said, Sean. No more pranks. We aren’t going to risk getting in trouble for one dumb prank. Okay?” There had been mass grumbling, and Hank was pretty sure he heard Warren tell Jamie they were still totally doing it when Hank left, but at that point he couldn’t be bothered to care.), and he was feeling rather proud of himself for helping keep the house under control.

That feeling dissipated when Hank found the flyer tacked to a notice board in the cafeteria. It was hot pink, and nearly void of decoration except for six large words typed across the front in a crazy font. **FREE BOOZE. DELTA X HOUSE. 7PM.**

_Those idiots_. They had to realize that academic probation meant they couldn’t throw parties, or do anything that remotely looked like misbehaving. And this? Was exactly that. He wondered how they’d managed to get it planned under Scott’s nose.

Heart sinking, he wondered if Alex had known about it.

Hank crumpled the paper in his fist, letting it fall to the ground as he strode towards the house. If they were going to make a mess, he’d just have to fix it. Again. He’d been so proud of them these past few months, all fifteen of them (Hank included) had been working on self-improvement, and he’d really, truly thought they might be able to succeed.

Maybe change just wasn’t as easy to achieve as the movies made it out to be.

He turned the corner of their street, taking in the couple hundred people milling about the lawn and hanging out the windows of the house. This was definitely in direct violation of the fire code.

He saw Armando having a heated conversation with a tiny girl, and decided to jog over and get some answers. “Armando! Hey,” He came to a stop as both Armando and the girl turned to glare at him. She looked vaguely familiar. “Um. Sorry. I just wanted to know….What the hell?” He jerked a hand at the people around them.

Armando grit his teeth. “Like I was just telling Kitty here, there _is_ no party. Or free booze. We didn’t do this. Any of it. And none of us can figure out who did.”

“I still say that we take advantage of the opportunity.” Kitty interjected. “It’s not every day a frat house gets a party thrown for them.”

“Not helping. We’re already on thin ice with the dean, we can’t afford to make any more mistakes. Especially not one like this. You know how MacTaggert feels about parties….” Armando said. He looked tired. Hank sympathized with him.

“Yeah, but, it’s not like you’ll get everyone out of here if they’ve been promised a party. You might as well give them a good one so they head home as soon as possible.” Kitty said, looking like she found her suggestion very reasonable. Considering it was coming from someone wearing sparkly flip-flops, Hank was inclined to disagree.

“That’s so not the point, Kitty. Are you going to help me fix this or not?” Armando asked her, sounding more like an order than anything. “You owe us for what happened last Christmas.”

That was when Hank realized who she was. “You used to date Bobby.” He exclaimed, surprised that he remembered her. “You dumped him last year at the ice-capades.” After she’d broken up with him, Bobby had spent two weeks moping around the house eating cookies and generally being a total pain to everyone around.

Her expression turned sour once more. “That’s me. Can we move on? If I’m going to be _stopping_ a party tonight, I want to be in bed by eleven.” She hopped over a body passed out on the lawn and looked around. “If you guys didn’t send out those flyers, who did?”

Just then Hank caught a glimpse of Angel and Rogue laughing on the front steps of the house, and his mood darkened. “I have an idea who.”

But it made no sense to confront them here, with so many people around, where they would only deny it, so Hank was forced to join Armando and Kitty in shooing drunk people off their lawn.

It was hard work, considering most of them didn’t want to leave (and some asshole kept turning the music back on and making it harder to get rid of the crowd), but after half an hour, Hank was feeling pretty successful. They’d managed to clear most of the lawn off, and only the people inside the house remained.

Somewhere along the way they’d run into Sam, who was as bewildered as they were, and dragged him into helping. With four people, things went a lot more smoothly.

“I think we’re actually going to be able to pull this off.” Hank told the others as they headed for the interior of the house. With any luck, they _would_ be done by eleven.

“Damn right!” Kitty whooped, and Sam gave a loud clap. But Armando was looking elsewhere, his gaze fixed over Hank shoulder and his expression serious.

“Don’t count on it, guys.” He warned them, just before the sound of police sirens reached Hank’s ears.

He groaned. Fuck this whole night.

 

                                                                                                                

* * *

 

 

They were let off with a warning. Which, for dean MacTaggert, really just meant she was giving them another strike. Since she operated on a three-strike system, they were one away from being shut down. Everyone in Delta was suitably depressed by this thought.

“I can’t believe this happened.” Scott moaned into his hands. His hair was sticking up in tufts on top of his head from where he’d been tugging at it earlier. “We were doing so well, and then…and then—ugh.  We can’t mess up again.”

“We’re sorry, Scott.” Bobby told him, looking close to tears. He’d always taken Scott’s criticism really hard, and Hank knew the whole situation was wearing on him.

“I don’t blame you, Bobby. You guys didn’t do this. You didn’t do anything.” Scott tried to smile, but it was obviously too much effort.

“Yeah,” Sean chimed in. “We didn’t even get a chance to put the golf cart in their pool.”

Scott’s head snapped up and his eyes narrowed.

“When we drove by, the campus police were already there, and we had to make a run for it. It was weird, it was like they knew we were going to be there.” Sean’s voice faded out as he thought about that. Hank wanted to shake him. Scott so did not need to know about that botched plan right now.

“You guys did what.” Scott intoned darkly.

“We’re sorry.” Bobby repeated.

“After I told YOU NOT TO? WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?” Scott was red in the face now, an awful look on him. Even Hank flinched, and he’d done nothing but try to talk them out of it.

Jamie muttered something at the ground.

“What was that?” Scott asked.

“We weren’t thinking?”

“DAMN RIGHT YOU WEREN’T. DO YOU _WANT_ TO BE KICKED OUT?”

All fourteen other members of Delta shook their heads.

“SO YOU NEED TO ACT LIKE IT. THIS WON’T HAPPEN AGAIN. AGREED?”

“Agreed.” Chimed fourteen voices.

                                                                                                                     

* * *

 

**MAY.**

It happened again.

More precisely, it happened two more times. The first was when Kurt decided to take a box of dildos over to the Kappa house and leave it on the doorstep, hoping the members would tear each other apart arguing about who it belonged to, but before he could, the Kappa’s sent the next-door neighbors a package of thongs with his name embroidered on them. He’d never been so mortified.

The second happened in the middle of the night, when Alex and Hank were watching some horror movie on the couch, and Alex jokingly suggested that they should pull a _Carrie_ and find a way to dump buckets of paint all over the various members of the Kappa’s. Forty minutes later, a pizza delivery guy showed up with seventeen pizzas supposedly ordered by the Delta chapter president.

As Scott was currently spending the night at his girlfriend’s house, it was easy to rule him out as a suspect.

After gathering everyone in the house to pool their money to pay off the bill, Hank thought back to every prank they’d pulled over the past few months. Something seemed suspicious, the way the Kappa’s were on top of every single prank they’d tried to pull recently.

There was no good explanation outside of coincidence, but as Hank was starting to realize, there was no such thing as a true coincidence. A fact he brought up to Scott when the president finally returned home from Jean’s apartment.

“Something just doesn’t feel right, Scott. I don’t know how to explain it, but it doesn’t add up. The anonymous tip the cops got right before Alex and Warren broke into the registrar’s office, the security team already being there at the Kappa house when Sean tried to put the golf cart in their pool. Everything.”

Scott frowned, too practical a man to just accept this new piece of information without some thought. “You think they’ve been setting us up.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Hank answered. It was crazy to think that they could have planned this, considering everything the Delta’s had done had been their own idea. “It just doesn’t feel right.” He repeated lamely. But Scott was nodding now, fingers tapping his chin thoughtfully.

“I hear you, Hank. But I think it’s more serious than what you’re thinking. There’s no way those assholes could have guessed our every move like that. Somebody must have ratted.” He paused and chuckled. “That or they tapped the phone lines.”

All jokes aside, the answer was _right there_ , calling to him, begging him to figure it out. He was a smart guy, Scott was a smart guy, this shouldn’t be too hard.

“What if…” Hank trailed off, spinning around the room slowly. Something was itching at the back of his mind, begging him to remember it. A conversation, months ago in the art room. A warning from an enemy. “Repeat what you just said.”

Scott looked baffled, but complied. “I said: _there’s no way those assholes could guess our every move like that. Somebody must have ratted to them_.”

Hank flapped a hand. “After that.”

“Uh, _it’s either that or they tapped the phone lines_? But come on, Hank. I was kidding. They couldn’t have done that. One of the guys must have slipped up, or something.”

But Hank wasn’t listening. “Check the bookshelves….” He muttered to himself, already knowing what he was going to find when he got there. Adrenaline coursed through him, a surge of high from just _knowing_ he was right. He rummaged through the books, knocking several off the shelf accidentally. The Kappa’s had been playing the long game here, preparing for the big payoff. The Delta’s had only been trying to deal with each attack as they came in.

He wondered briefly if John would be disappointed in them for taking this long to decode his message. He supposed that blame rested on him.

Scott paced behind him. “Hank? You’re really starting to concern me. Do I need to call Jean or something?”

Calling Jean was Scott’s go-to move. “No no, I just—Aha!” Triumphantly, Hank pointed to the little camera on the side of the Lord of the Rings novel he was holding. The little red light on the top of it blinked innocently at him. He made a shushing noise with his finger to his lips, and then placed his hand over the camera so it looked like he happened to have stepped in front of the bookshelf.

“Is that a _camera_?” Scott mouthed in horror.

Hank nodded. He felt pretty horrified himself. Carefully, he slipped the book back into place on the shelf and motioned Scott into the kitchen. Once there, they turned the faucet on so the rush of running water covered their words. It was a little overkill, but they were feeling paranoid. Rightly so, Hank felt.

“The Kappa’s have been filming us. That’s how they knew where we were going to be, and what we were going to be doing.” He said. He could hardly believe it himself. “They’ve heard everything we were planning for months.”

“Oh my god. That’s brilliant. Evil, but brilliant. I can’t believe we didn’t think of that. It probably wasn’t that hard, either. You tape a camera somewhere out of the way, and leave it on for a couple months and you’d get a ton of good info.”

“Scott!”

“Right, right, sorry. I got carried away. What should we do with it?” Scott still looked far too impressed with the situation, reconfirming for Hank what he’d always suspected. Scott Summers needed a hobby.

“I think we need to leave it up. That way the Kappa’s won’t know that we know what they’ve been doing. We’ll have the upper hand.” Oh no. He was starting to buy into this madness. He could hear it in his voice.

That was an okay thing, he decided. These people were illegally spying on them. It was okay to get mad now.

He waved a hand towards the game room. “We have to check the other bookshelf. Check all of them. We need to know where all of the cameras are.”

 

                                                                                                                

* * *

 

 

By the time the rest of the house returned from dinner, Scott and Hank had found six cameras. The house had thoroughly been inspected under the guise of spring cleaning (unfortunately, keeping up this ruse required an awful lot of actual cleaning to be done), and they were fairly certain there were no more recording devices anywhere in the house. The one saving grace of the sitiuation had been when they found all of the bedrooms and bathrooms clear of cameras.  At least the Kappa’s had the decency to leave them _some_ privacy. Now, they were ready to present their plan of attack to the other boys. Somewhere far away from the house.

“Is something wrong?” Jamie asked, shifting uncomfortably in the MacDonald’s booth he was sitting at. “The house looks better than I’ve ever seen it. Did someone die or something?”

Scott shook his head. “No, worse.”

A chorus of: “ _Worse_!?” Shot around the collection of tables they’d dragged together.

“Not worse! He doesn’t mean worse. He means…..different. Completely different. We got pranked again, guys.” Hank said. “They put cameras in the bookshelves. That’s how they knew we were coming that night. That’s how they’ve been planning for _everything_ we tried to throw at them.”

“Zhat means they saw me trying to do the Dirty Dancing moves last month.” Kurt sighed. Next to him, Josh and Sam snickered.

“You think that’s bad? I ran through the living room without a towel a couple weeks ago. They saw everything I’ve got to offer.” Roberto huffed, blowing his dark curls across his forehead. “If I don’t keep something secret to add a little mystery, I don’t have anything!”

“This is super invasive. Like, I’m sure that violates some right to privacy acts out there, or something.” Armando said with a frown. He seemed like the only one here who was worried about the situation for reasons outside the realm of superficial. Hank could see the law-school gears  turning in his brain.

Bobby looked dumbstruck, mind no-doubt reeling from the news that his probation had been a carefully crafted plan. “What does this mean? What do we do next?”

“This means the Alpha’s are on our side. Remember back in October when I came home and told you someone had warned me that the Kappa’s were planning another prank? It was John Allerdyce.” Hank waited for the gasps of surprise to subside before he continued. Alex’s was obviously fake, but no one was looking at him.

“Why would he do that? The Alpha’s hate everybody. That’s basically a requirement of living with them.” Said Scott.

“I don’t know, but it’s good news.” Hank smiled at their confused expressions, and popped a french fry in his mouth. “This means we have someone to pay a visit to.”

 

                                                                                                                 

* * *

 

 

The Alpha M house was as run-down as one would expect. The peeling paint and cracking boards created the illusion that no one lived here. Maybe that was the way they wanted things. As an unofficial chapter, the Alpha’s were free from the rules and restrictions school sanctioned Greek housing was held to. Still, Hank thought as he approached the deteriorating exterior with his friends, it wouldn’t hurt to invest in a little lawncare.

Just so the fear of finding the building condemned and demolished with him in it dissipated.

But he was working on that being less judgmental thing, so he swallowed his inner monologue and focused on the one good thing he could find: the rosebushes under the front windows were growing nicely.

With growing trepidation, Hank rapped on the door. There was a chance the Alpha’s would want nothing to do with them (more than a chance if he was being realistic), and he couldn’t blame them. This was a Delta problem, and there was absolutely no reason to expect the Alpha’s to want to help them through it.

“What do you want?” The bored voice of Tabitha Smith floated out to them as the door swung open. With her spiky hairstyle and casual snapping of gum, she looked every bit like the bored cheerleaders Hank had been at the mercy of in high school. He wanted to hate her on principle.

Scott cleared his throat. “We wanted to talk to John. Allerdyce? He’s supposed to live here.”

“Is he.” She blinked at them from the doorway. Her round face seemed familiar to Hank, even with the dissatisfied expression she was wearing. Perhaps more so because of it. “Haven’t seen him all day. Try the student health center. He’s supposed to be volunteering there this month.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks for the help. Do you know his hours?”

She shrugged one shoulder and started to close the door. The Delta’s trudged down the steps of the house, defeat settling into their postures. Without help, they were as good as dead. But just before the latch went shut, a loud voice shouted from down the hall: “JOHN! Where’s the damn remote? I know you’re the one hiding it!”

The Delta’s spun back to Tabitha, accusation bright in their eyes. She had the decency to look shamed.

“Hang on, let me check and see if he’s here.” She poked her head inside before she started yelling, unfortunately only muffling her voice slightly.  “JOHN? THERE ARE DELTA’S HERE TO SEE YOU.”

There was a moment of silence, followed by several thumps like someone taking the stairs four-at-a-time, and then John appeared in the doorway.

“Hey.”

“Hi John. We’re here to ask you for assistance. As you may know—”

Hank cut Scott off with a squeeze to his arm. Their president was going about this in all the wrong ways, and judging from how John’s eyebrows had begun creeping their way up his forehead like angry caterpillars, it wasn’t going to be an easy sell. They had to do this with tact.

Tabitha crossed her arms and started clucking her tongue. Yeah, Hank was probably going to get punched in the face.

“Let me handle it, okay?” He muttered to Scott. “You told me about the cameras in our bookshelf.”

John jutted his chin forward, neither confirming or denying.

“You told me ages ago, without even being asked. Why did you do that?”

“I dunno.” John shrugged. “That house has always been messed up, man. They deserve to go.”

Hank exchanged a glance with Armando. There was clearly hostility between the two chapters, but Hank couldn’t pinpoint why.

“Did they do something to you guys?” He asked.

Behind John, Tabitha snorted. “Did they do something to us? Uh, _yeah_. That’s one way of putting it. They talk inclusivity and help for kids from poor backgrounds, but what they mean is help for the pretty girls who get straight A’s and have never done so much as steal a candy bar. What about the rest of us?” She waved a hand at the house, where Hank knew many more Alpha’s were going about their lives. “ _That’s_ how Greek life screws you over.”

John rolled his eyes like he thought her dramatics were excessive, but the defeated slope to his shoulders told a different story.

“I never really thought of it that way before.” He tried to seem understanding, to win them over with his sympathy. Truth be told, he was starting to think he’d been blind to a lot these past two years. It felt like a bad time to be pushing his agenda on them, but it was what they’d come here to do. “What if we told you there was a way to get back at the Kappa’s for everything they’ve done—or, _haven’t_ done—for you guys?”

If the glance John and Tabitha shared meant anything, they were curious about the proposal.

Hank considered that a good day’s work, especially since he’d expected to get punched before he could even open his mouth.

 

                                                                                                           

* * *

 

 

The Alpha’s kitchen was far dirtier than the Delta’s kept theirs, but nobody said anything. The tension in the room was thick as John went stiff at the sight of Warren brushing something off his seat before sitting down.

All in all, it was one of the less pleasant meet-and-greets Hank had had.

The sight of all of his friends squeezed awkwardly into the kitchen made Hank wonder why he hadn’t insisted on keeping the numbers low for their trip to the Alpha M house. But Scott was very particular about these things, and he’d wanted full forces to help gain sympathy.

John cleared his throat. “So….”

“Right. You guys hate the Kappa’s, right? Well, we….we, uh, we sort of know a way to get the whole house suspended. If you’re interested.”

“Spill.”

Hank picked at the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “We have to tell the dean everything. The pranks, the drug use, the hazing—everything.” Hank could feel the beads of sweat forming on the back of his neck under John and Tabitha’s twin glares.

Fred Dukes had come in from the other room, and was standing in the doorway as unobtrusively as a guy who weighed three hundred pounds could be.

“Good plan. Have fun with that.” John snorted. He and Tabitha grinned at each other. Hank felt like he’d missed something key.

“We’re going to need help.” He paused and clarified. “We could use your help. We need as many people backing our stories up as we can get, and you guys are the best option we’ve got.”

Tabitha shot a bitter glance at the ground, her body language angry in a way Hank hadn’t seen before. “You’re gonna need way more than the opinions of a couple tattletales.” She laughed at his clueless expression. It was a harsh sound he didn’t want to hear directed at him again. “Where’s the proof, genius? Why would MacTaggert listen to you without real evidence that any of this happened? She never listened to me.”

It dawned on Hank why Tabitha looked so familiar. She’d been pledging Kappa at the same time Raven did. It had never occurred to him to ask Raven what happened to the girls who didn’t make the cut.

The stunned silence rang through the kitchen for a moment before Tabitha laughed again. “Don’t look so surprised, boys. There are lots of different people interested in joining a Sorority. Don’t act like I’m not good enough to pledge. I don’t need the judgement of a bunch of boozed-up frat boys who can’t even buy their board shorts in the right size.”

Bobby and Kurt nudged each other, a silent argument seeming to break out. Somehow Hank just _knew_ it was about the board shorts they were wearing.

“We’re not judging you! We just didn’t know.” Scott broke in. “That only makes us more interested in your help, though. If you have insider knowledge….That could be invaluable.”

Tabitha leveled him with a stubborn gaze. “You still need proof. I’m not talking until you have solid evidence against those guys. And I have a lot to say.”

Scott nodded slowly. “Okay. We’ll get whatever you need to feel comfortable. Right gang?”

“Uh, not to be the Debbie downer here, but does anyone have an idea of how to do that, exactly?” Hank found himself saying for the second time this year. Hopefully it would also be the last.

From the doorway, Fred spoke up. “I have an idea. We _Mission Impossible_ it.”

An understanding grin spread across John’s face. “Man on the inside?”

“Man on the inside.” Fred confirmed.

For some reason, Hank felt a sinking feeling in his stomach.

 

                                                                                                                   

* * *

 

 

And so, exactly a week later, Hank found himself standing in front of the Kappa’s door with bated breath.

The air around him felt charged, a choking, weighty feeling that he wished would disappear. Anything he said to Raven now would be tossed aside, and it was imperative that he speak to her. Without her, they had nothing.

He had her schedule memorized—an unfortunate side-effect of being her best friend for the past seven years—and he was almost certain she was home. Of course, he’d definitely get off easy if she wasn’t.

See, the worst part of this plan was that he had to apologize to her to get any of this to work. No, that was hardly the worst part. The worst part was that the apology would mean nothing when he was done here.

The door swung open, and: “ _What do you want_.” Raven practically snarled. She looked a mess, hair knotted into a messy bun, and day-old makeup mixing with the dark circles under her eyes to make a truly spectacular purple color. Despite being all of five foot five and wearing ratty sweatpants, she was terrifying.

Hank gulped. “To apologize.”

“Not interested.” The heavy door slammed towards him, and in a feat of bravery he never thought possible, he shoved his foot in the crack to stop it.

“Shit!” He winced. Raven looked unsympathetic.

“That’s what you get for being an asshole.”

Self-righteous anger welled up inside him, wrongfully so, and he glared at her. His foot throbbed uncomfortably. “I’m trying to _apologize_ here, Raven! Come on. Cut me a break.”

“Whatever. Come in, then, if you have to.” She let him follow her into the living room, though her shoulders were as stiff as Hank had ever seen them. “I’m not going to ask you if you want anything to drink because I’m mad at you.”

Hank wanted to roll his eyes. Yeah, cause that much hadn’t been obvious. “I won’t ask you for anything, then. I just want to talk. Okay?”

She gave a noncommittal shrug, lips pursed. It made her already thin face look like a lemon. He was going to have to work harder than this to get her to listen. Or admit anything.

“I’m sorry we’ve been fighting--”

She cut him off with a wave. “Try again.”

“I’m sorry.” There was supposed to be more, words that meant something, that explained away his actions, or who he’d been over the years. That made her understand. “I’m sorry for hurting you.” But that was all he could muster, all he could give her. After seven years of friendship, she’d have to take it, have to know how sincerely he meant it.

She jutted her jaw out and crossed her arms. Her slouched position on the Kappa’s couch made her seem like she wasn’t even listening, but Hank could see the tip of her nose turning red. It was a telltale sign she was starting to get emotional.

“Okay. Good.” She nodded. “You should be. You’ve been really awful to me, you know that?”

“I’m sorry.” He repeated, feeling helpless. Again. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I care about you so much. You’re my family, Raven. I hope you know that.”

His words didn’t seem to comfort her. Eyes filled with more sadness than Hank wanted to see there, and face stricken, she looked up at him. “I love you.”

“I know. I love you, too.”

“No, you _don’t_ know! You’ve never known!” The words echoed between them like Hank was supposed to know what that meant. “I liked you so much when we started college, when you were cooler and smarter than everyone, and you never even really seemed to notice I was there. I was your friend, sure, but you had these new friends who were better and brighter than I was, who could talk to you about things I couldn’t. Even when I’d manage to drag you away from the lab to come home with me, it was only to talk science with my brother. How do you think that made me feel? Like no matter what I tried to give you, it was never enough!”

Stunned silence filled the air, Hank’s ears ringing with the weight of everything she was trying to tell him. It was such a simple answer to every straw he’d been grasping at these past months without her, and he wondered if he could really consider himself a genius if he’d missed it. Fifteen year-old Hank’s heart took a leap, but it wasn’t the earth-shattering confession he’d hoped for. There were no fireworks, or wedding bells chiming around them. He wasn’t even positive he knew what she was saying.

“Well?” She said, voice bordering on hysterical. “Aren’t you going to say something? Please?” Her chest was heaving like this was taking everything out of her just to be standing here.

“What are you saying, Raven?” He asked cautiously, trying to keep his voice steady. A year ago, he would have considered this the best development to ever hit him. Now….now things were different.

“You know what I’m saying.” She scoffed. “Sometimes I’d catch you looking at me, and I’d think _maybe_. Maybe he feels the same way. But you’d always go back to doing your own thing like I didn’t exist.”

It hit him then that there was no way he could carry out the Delta’s plan. This was make or break for their friendship that he fix things, and there was no way he could do that if he was trying to trick information out of her.

She deserved a real apology, no ulterior motives, no wires taped to the inside of a shirt-sleeve.

“I didn’t know.” He whispered, devastated.

He’d taken a seat at some point during her rant, and suddenly he was grateful for that. Standing felt too difficult in the face of her admission.

“I’m really sorry, Raven. I didn’t know. I would never have wanted you to feel like that, to hurt like that. I don’t know how to make this better.”

Her sad smile told him everything he needed to know. “It’s okay. I just wanted you to know….” She bowed her head and nodded, before speaking again, so quietly he almost thought he imagined it. “Thank you.”

In the spirit of honesty, he needed to tell her how he’d felt, too. They needed to leave everything to rest. “I liked you too, you know.”

She stilled at his words, mouth falling open into the smallest of _o’s_.

“Yeah. I thought you were the prettiest girl I’d ever met. And the nicest, too. You helped me through so much. I’d never forget about you.” He hesitated. There was so much more they needed to say here, but he couldn’t ask her to do that now. They both had things they needed to apologize for. Another day. “Do you think you can forgive me? Even though I’ve been a jerk?”

She laughed, a watery sound, but it lifted Hank’s spirits nonetheless. “Of course I do, you idiot. That’s all I ever wanted you to say.” She blinked up at him through her bangs. Hank got the distinct feeling she wanted to ask him something. “Did you really think I was pretty?”

“Definitely. I still do, too. I told you. Blondes are my type.” As much as he hated categorizing sexual attraction into boxes of _my type_ or _not my type_ , it seemed to be presenting true so far.

“I think you’re pretty, too.” She said. They both laughed. It was a little awkward, but the tension in the room had shifted, allowing room between them to breathe. They could talk and laugh and joke again without someone getting upset, and that was worth more than gold to Hank.

Clearly, Raven agreed that their friendship was more important than anything, more important than admissions of love, and they were just going to have to move forward--together--and find a way to get back to a good place. In a way, it made them closer.

Even if they’d missed being interested in each other by only a short while, they would always share that bond. The knowledge that they had loved this person, and that person had loved them back. That was pretty powerful.

“Hey Hank?”

He turned to look at her, wondering where the vulnerability in her voice had gone. She just seemed to be scrutinizing him now. He acknowledged her question with a nod.

“Can I ask you a question?” She didn’t wait for him to consent. “Why did you come here? Really?”

He frowned. “To apologize.”

“Don’t try to do that. I know you. I know you’ve never willingly apologized for anything in your life.” She was playing with the zipper to her jacket again, the only crack in her totally calm facade.

“I’m turning over a new leaf. Trying to own up to shitty behavior. I owed you an explanation.”

“But you thought I was in the wrong--don’t argue, you did, I know it.” She waited for him to reluctantly nod his agreement. “So what did you want to get from showing up here? Was it part of another prank? Was it a dare?”

The real answer would only make her mad, but he owed her honesty now, after everything.

“I was supposed to come here to trick you into admitting on tape that the Kappa’s set us up for all that stuff we got into trouble for.” Wow. It sounded so shitty when he said it like that. So unforgivable. He was lucky she wasn’t punching him in the face right now. He pulled his sleeve back to show her the wire taped to his arm.

Silence reigned once more, the uncomfortable feeling that Hank was once again making a huge mistake hitting him like a typhoon. He should have just left, dealt with this when she wasn’t angry. What she didn’t know wouldn’t have hurt her.

“Wow. You were really going to trick me?”

He shrugged. “I was going to try. I don’t know if it would have worked--”

“Let’s just go ahead and say right now that it didn’t.” Her voice was tight, but it wasn’t cold the way it had been when they’d fought before.

“Right. It _didn’t_ work, and I’m sorry for trying. But we’re going to get kicked out, Raven. Bobby and Alex will lose their scholarships, and Scott might not get to graduate. I had to try something.” She had to understand that this wasn’t personal, that even if the rest of it got out of hand, he still never meant to hurt her.

“What were you trying to get me to say?” She asked. “What would help your case? If I said that the Kappa’s were the ones who threw that party at your house? If I admitted to us starting the prank war in the first place? Would it help if I mentioned the cameras we put in your bookshelves so we could learn your pranks and retaliate? Would it do anything for me, Raven Darkholme, to tell you that the Kappa’s are hoping you guys get kicked out? Well good luck getting that out of me.”

“I know. I’m not going to try. I already….” Hank stared at her for a moment, dumbstruck. Was she really…? She couldn’t be.

There was absolutely no reason for her to do that for him, for her to put herself on the line to help someone who had just admitted to trying to trick her. But maybe that was the point. She thrived on the unexpected, on letting her emotions guide her. This was so perfectly in character it was almost funny.

He pulled together as much of his still-reeling brain as he could, and responded in what he felt was a passably contrite manner. “Right. I see how you feel. I won’t bother trying to change your mind, if you’re so set on not helping.” Over the words (or perhaps instead of them) he mouthed _thank you_ at her.

“I’m sorry, it just can’t be helped. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave now.” She gave him a smile, still a little melancholy at the edges, and nodded.

“Of course. I wouldn’t want to impose on you any more.”

He left the same way he’d come in, though the air between them felt different. If this wasn’t a white flag to end their war, an olive branch to invite him back into her life, he didn’t know what was.

With any luck, he’d be able to get the Delta’s out of hot water, and still have a best friend to come back to.

 

                                                                                                              

* * *

 

 

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Jamie whispered loudly. Because he was seated so far away from Hank in the dean’s waiting room, he had to lean over Warren and an end table to speak to him.

“He already said he was, now shut up.” Warren said, swatting the younger boy away from him. Jamie’s face contorted in a grimace of displeasure.

“But what if she didn't buy it? What if she still thinks we’re in the wrong here. We’re gonna get kicked out, Warren. Even _you_ have to care about that.”

Feeling an argument growing, Hank shushed them both. “I don’t know if this is going to work, okay guys? But dean Mactaggert seemed really interested in what we had to say, and she promised she’d be fair in her judgement. That’s all we can ask for.” With any luck, they’d both get through this with a minimal amount of bruising from smacking each other.

He’d brought Jamie and Warren with him for a reason, partly because they were two of the most sympathetic Delta’s (if only in story, and not attitude), and partly because they were two of the only members still on speaking terms. The past few weeks of probation had been wearing on the house, and many friendships were nearly in tatters.

Although _speaking terms_ was relative, Hank thought with a groan as Jamie pinched Warren in retaliation for his earlier smack.

It was a shame Scott wasn’t here, but they’d collectively agreed that while it looked bad for the president of their chapter to miss such an important meeting, it looked even worse if he missed the final week of his clinical rotation to attend the meeting. There was really no good solution.

“Mr. McCoy. Boys.” Dean Mactaggert nodded to them from the doorway of her office. She waved a hand at the leather chairs inside. Hank took note that they seemed far more comfortable than the hard-backs they’d been waiting on for the past half hour. Go figure she’d save the good furniture for the people in real trouble. Probably to lull them into a false sense of security. Not to make it sound like she was scary or anything. But she was a total shark of a woman.

“When we spoke on the phone, I’ll admit that I was a little skeptical of your story.” She said as they filed into the room. “But I’ve been reviewing the incident reports, and some of the things you told me add up. Such as the anonymous phone call received before you tried to break into the Administrator's Office--”

The hard look she gave Hank made him want to start spluttering his objections. He’d had no part in that one whatsoever! But arguing that point seemed ill-advised.

“--Or the party that sprung up out of nowhere. Which, the records office has confirmed started while the majority of you were scheduled for classes. There’s no evidence that the tip-off was one of the members of your own house growing a conscience, and if you say you have proof that the Kappa’s have been setting you up….The school is prepared to drop your probation. Should you provide adequate proof, of course.” She added hurriedly as Jamie’s face lit up.

“That shouldn’t be a problem, dean. Can I plug something in here?” Hank motioned to her laptop.

She nodded, and he slid the USB drive into the slot. His fingers shook slightly as he selected the correct file. This was fine, this was good. This was everything they could have hoped for, and they were in the right here. They had undeniable proof. It would be fine.

Raven’s voice played through the speakers, a little too loud, and with far too much white noise behind it, but it was clear enough to understand.

“... _Would it do anything for me, Raven Darkholme, to tell you that the Kappa’s are hoping you guys get kicked out? Well good luck getting that out of me_.”

Dean MacTaggert’s expression had grown more and more pinched as the tape played, her eyebrows so fiercely disappointed that they were turning downwards into a perfect impression of the Macdonald’s arch. Hank clapped himself on the back. If her expression was anything to go by, they’d be getting their probation lifted by the weekend. Hank, 1. World, 0.

“You can promise me that none of this was edited in any way?”

All three boys nodded their heads.

“I need verbal confirmation, please.”

“It’s all real. I promise.” Hank said. His apprehension was starting to turn into a stomach ache, a much worse kind of anxiety. “I’ve, uh, I’ve got the original tape here, if you want to hear it? I don’t know if that would help, but it might.”

“That’s quite alright, thank you. Provided you boys are willing to sign statements saying you believe this to be true to the best of your knowledge, everything seems to be in order. We’ll know how to contact you should this be proven otherwise.” She smiled, not quite a friendly expression, but Hank still felt comforted slightly.

“So...So that means you believe us? We’re all good?” Jamie asked, bouncing forward in his seat. He looked a bit like an excited chipmunk.

“Not quite, Mr. Madrox. Mr. McCoy? You have a personal relationship with the Kappa girl on this tape, is there any possibility you might have coerced her to admit to false acts in order to clear the Delta’s of their charges?”

Despite the fact that Hank had in no way done anything like that, his heart began racing. This was never going to work; she’d never believe them. They were always going to be that trouble-making frat house to her.

“Of course not. Actually, that was the first time Raven and I had spoken since December. We haven’t really been getting along. She wouldn’t have faked anything for me.” It was difficult to say, but her assistance with their case made it easier. She’d given him an olive branch. “And before you ask, no I didn’t trick her into saying anything that wasn’t true. You heard the tape. She knew what she was doing.”

Dean MacTaggert gave an approving nod. “So your information appears to be unedited, your source free from manipulation, and your housemates back your story up.”

Hank shifted in his seat, wishing he felt more like she was siding with them. She was difficult to read--a deliberate action, he was sure.

“But I still need confirmation of whereabouts on the nights in question. Can you provide me with that?”

“Yes. Sure. Of course. But...if you don’t mind me asking. Does it look good for us? Do you think we’re going to get off?”

She adjusted her glasses. “Please don’t think I’m being deliberately obtuse here, Mr. McCoy.  My job is a very difficult one, and that can be made difficult when student affairs become... _entangled_. But this information appears very damning for the Kappa’s, and I will see to it that the right ears hear this. I may not always agree with everything your frat house has done, but I won’t let that color my judgement here.”

Relief flooded through Hank. She was going to help. She was going to fix things. Finally someone could take this out of their hands, could handle the situation in a way that wouldn’t devolve into chaos and pranking and hurt feelings. It was _over_.

“Thank you. We can’t say that enough; we really appreciate everything you’re doing for us here. We’ll do anything we can to make the process easier. Please keep us updated” He told her, hoping his sincerity came through.

“Of course, Mr. McCoy. Thank you for your candor. I’ll ask that you refrain from pulling any more pranks until this matter has been resolved.”

The three boys headed for the door, all in various states of elation. Although Warren might’ve acted unaffected by the situation, Hank knew he was excited. Hank himself was internally fist-pumping like crazy, an act he would be glad to never perform in front of anyone. But if any moment deserved that public humiliation, it would be this one.

Even if she didn’t lift their probation, if she didn’t give the other boys back their full privileges, they had tried their best. Alex and the others had to understand that. At the very least, nobody would be getting kicked out. That was a win in and of itself.

“Mr. McCoy?” Dean MacTaggert’s voice stopped him in the doorway. “Your friends are going to be okay. I promise you I will personally make sure each and every one of those boys makes it graduation. Even if I have to walk them up the aisle myself.”

Hank smiled. Sometimes it was nice to have a real adult in charge.

 

                                                                                                                   

* * *

 

**JUNE.**

“I’ve missed this, you know. Us. A lot.” Raven’s metal fold-out chair rattled as she moved from the seat and turned to plunk herself down on the ground next to Hank with a smile. She bumped her shoulder into his fondly, hair swishing against his arm.

“I have, too.” Hank smiled back. She looked a lot better these days, her dark circles gone and her forehead wrinkle-free. It was nice to have the real Raven back.

The graduation ceremony was running late--as these things tended to do--but Hank wasn’t worried. It was a beautiful day, the company was great, and he couldn’t have been happier.

“Did you ever hear back from Charles about that internship? I know his work is completely boring, but I’m sure you’ll be able to find some of it fun. He sounded really excited.” She said. Since the Kappa house was put on probation, Raven had been taking a greater interest in Hank’s life. He, in turn, had been doing his best to be more involved in hers.

“I know. And I love him, but I think I need to try doing something else for a while. I’ve been working with Charles since high school, and if I don’t branch out now, I’m not sure I ever will. Maybe you should do it, since you’re getting the summer off work.” He felt like he needed to apologize, like his answer needed to be justified. But the simple truth was that he saw himself becoming a younger Charles, an updated model, and decided he needed a step back. The man would always be one of closest friends, but the mentor role had to take a back burner for a while.

“Oh please, me in a lab coat? No thanks. But--that’s okay, Hank. I get it. I just kinda hoped things might be the way they used to be, you remember? All of us hanging out until all hours of the morning, drinking cocoa and looking at lab samples.”

Hank snorted. “You and I remember those nights a lot differently. If I recall correctly, you spent most of the time throwing things at us and whining about how boring science was.”

“Fine, maybe your version sounds accurate, too. But the cocoa thing stands.” She giggled, breeze moving her bangs around. Her golden eye, never able to hide her true mood, was bright and clear. Her laughter died off into a sigh, expression turning a little dreamy, and a little wistful. He followed her gaze to the graduating class, all decked out in their robes. “Things really have changed a lot, haven’t they?”

Hank hummed his agreement, hands deep in the soft grass and head tilted back. “In a good way.” He said, watching Alex laugh with Armando and Angel by the stage. His hair glittered like wheat in the sunlight. “You know I’m never going to let go of you and Charles, right? You guys are in my life for good.”

He’d never expected things to go this way. With Alex, with Raven—with Charles, even. But that was the best part about life. You couldn’t plan these things, couldn’t predict them. Sometimes life got really, really shitty before it got good again, and you just had to ride those tough times out. Their probation being lifted had been the first real sign that things were looking up, that it might start to get better soon. And it had. Scott and Armando had made it to graduation, along with Scott’s girlfriend, Jean, and several of the Kappa’s.

Raven nodded. “I know. Ditto, you big sap.”

The Delta’s and Kappa’s had made up (an awkward moment refereed by Professor Logan, who seemed even less pleased to be there than they had been), as well as Charles and Erik. Though there was undeniable tension left there, they seemed to be on speaking terms again. Delta had also formed a close friendship with the Alpha M’s. Some of them even seemed interested in joining an official chapter to experience the life more fully. Though Hank suspected John’s interest had more to do with the looks he kept shooting Bobby when he thought no one was watching him.

Hank had finished his dissertation--the first draft, at least, and the department had loved it. Turns out all the motivation he needed to complete it was the fear of being forcefully removed from the program. It was nowhere near perfect, but his dedication to Raven in the first pages had made her cry. That moment more than anything told him they would be able to stick together through anything.

In a way it was comforting to know that you could pick yourself up after mistakes were made. That sometimes you missed the signs someone was giving you, or chose to ignore them. And that was okay. You could regroup, return, and become that better version of yourself that you’d always wanted to be.

Maybe it was the optimism of the day stretching ahead of them, or the promise of the future hanging bright before him, but Hank was content in knowing that none of worry that had plagued him this past year mattered. What mattered was today, and tomorrow, and the next day. What mattered was everything that was happening now.

The summer sun was just starting to peek out from the clouds, the promise of warm-weather fun after the ceremony exciting everyone around them.

But most exciting of all; Hank was happy.

**Author's Note:**

> And....it's...finally....over. There's already a sequel in the works, so I hope you guys stick around for the next part! If you have any questions or want to scream about the x-men, you can find me at tumblr.


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